Florence Nightingale, Statistical Graphics Pioneer

Science News has a fascinating look at an under-appreciated corner of the career of Florence Nightingale — as an innovator in the use of statistical graphics to argue for social change. Nightingale returned from the Crimean War a heroine in the eyes of the British citizenry, for the soldiers' lives she had saved. But she came to appreciate that the way to save far more lives was to reform attitudes in the military about sanitation. Under the tutelage of William Farr, who had just invented the field of medical statistics, she compiled overwhelming evidence (in the form of an 830-page report) of the need for change. "As impressive as her statistics were, Nightingale worried that Queen Victoria's eyes would glaze over as she scanned the tables. So Nightingale devised clever ways of presenting the information in charts. Statistics had been presented using graphics only a few times previously, and perhaps never to persuade people of the need for social change."

Comments

Re:oh god

[shanen]

This is /., remember? You're asking far too much to expect the so-called editors to use a spelling checker. Which came first, /. or the toilet?

(I'm just extra annoyed since I've been a professional technical editor and rewriter for some years. Now after the nameless morons get through playing their moderation games I'll probably be seriously pissed--but that's the primary reaction I ever have to /. these days. I'm convinced that /. is just another interesting idea run into the ground.)

Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[girlintraining]

If she'd been a man presenting this, she'd have made the equivalent of surgeon general in her career. -_- No joke--Despite the blessing of Queen Victoria herself, she was denied a chairman position that oversaw general health affairs in the military. I doubt there's an academic statistics book currently in circulation that gives her any credit for this. Even this--a zine read by only a tiny, tiny fraction of the people who go to school every year and rely on her innovation. Hell, the entire field of field medicine was in disrepute at that time in history -- who needs medicine? Most nurses spent at least part of their time in the kitchen, which was viewed as more important. She made it important. It's been two centuries since then and she's still only a footnote. Today, graphical statistics are used in every trained discipline from engineering to medicine to management, but nobody knows this woman's name. They should -- they owe her a lot.

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[gregbot9000]

Actually, all statistics books I've read that have a section on history mention her graphs, and Charles Joseph Minard's graph of Napoleons losses in Russia. Most people I've meet and discussed statistics with have heard this before, and I was taught it like the first week of class, so save me the bleeding heart rant about social injustice.

So she didn't get to a high station because she was a woman in a society thats over 100 years dead, that really sucks for her, but only marginally relevant today.

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[gregbot9000]

If the problems facing this country were government actions killing whole races then it would be relevant today, as it stands the Holocaust is marginally relevant today.

If slavery existed in this country than abolitionism would be relevant today. It is not.

The constitution is still relevant today because the issue of the rights and power of the government is still ongoing, the rights of slaves and Jews aren't. Battles fought, won, buried. womans lib is still hanging on.

I understand history very well, and I stand by my statement. Womans lib has destroyed itself through success. It has become marginalized in todays society because there really isn't any systematic discrimination left for them to strike down. I'm sure you'll disagree with that statement, but I have stopped listening to fringe groups spout about their relevance years ago, be them Marxists, La Rouch, Gold-bugs, neo-cons or feminists. If your so big on womans lib go to Afghanistan where there are still battles to be fought. In the US all thats left is marginalized gripes about textbooks, maternity leave, sexual advertising, and pushing statistically dubious arguments about wage gaps.

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[girlintraining]

I saw a recent blog post which was lamenting the fact that, when asked to name a women scientist, most college students name Marie Curie, with a smattering of Barbara McClintock, ignoring all the other women scientist. No one in the comments stopped to consider that when asked to name a male scientist, most would have responded Albert Einstein, with perhaps a smattering of Richard Feynman, ignoring all the other male scientists. Yet somehow gender was thought to play a major role in those other female scientists being marginalized in this example.

Hmmm. That may be a leap. Being a female scientist in and of itself causes a certain level of marginalization. That doesn't mean it can't be overcome (as with any stereotype). Discrimination is usually pervasive but subtle. Gender discrimination effects those who are truly talented less than those who are average because it's harder to ignore real talent. But for the mediocre -- the lab assistant, the post-doc, the grunts of the community, discrimination looms large in their world.

And to answer to another point in your post -- this is also why the people who do struggle to the top have a lot to say about the discrimination they endured. It's because they've watched so many of their friends and colleagues drop off because of it, and because the higher you go the fewer like you there are. It may be trite and tiring to hear, but the stereotype is still there and for my small part I don't mind being considered trite and tiring to listen to because stereotypes come the same way -- hearing the same thing over and over again. The only way to break the cycle is to keep people from only hearing one message.

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[Anonymous Coward]

>If she'd been a man presenting this, she'd have made the equivalent of surgeon general in her career.

And if she'd been black, few people would have heard of her at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Seacole

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Nightengale and Curie (and let's not forget Franklin) realized that the only way to be taken seriously in fields dominated by men was undeniable achievement.

I can't remember seeing a textbook, even at the high school level, that made no mention of them in the context of their achievements.

I hope as a scientist, you spend the bulk of your time as they did: working hard to further research, rather than bemoaning your perceived status as a woman, and that of those who came before you. Then maybe we'll remember your name in the same way - not under the heading of "Women in Science", but "Great Scientists in History".

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[gregbot9000]

You are talking about successors, not the parent issues now, Hard Labor for a crime is a far cry ethically from forced labor. Lessons are learned from past events, society moves on, the arguments from those past events are then marginally applicable, and are changed into something new, Thesis vs. anti-thesis creates a new synthesis, leading to new arguments about new issues. The arguments of VHS v. Beta are not applicable today even if the debate of blue ray and HDDVD were similar and drew a lot of lessons from it. Womans Lib has died down because there are not a lot of arguments to be won about equality of the sexes. There is still progress to be made but nothing like what has been made. Nightengale's patriarchal repression IS only marginally relevant seeing as she would be surgeon general in todays society.

Consider this as my challenge to your statement: Go to work for the next week in female attire appropriate to your work environment and tell me how well that works for you.

Why would I? I know what will happen and so do you, but it doesn't mean jack about systematic discrimination. The social mores that exist have more to do with Sexual Dimorphism and gender differences that even baboons exhibit. I will guarantee you they are supported just as strongly by women It is not patriarchal repression that makes dumb girls slaves to fashion, but the same force that also makes dumb men slaves to power tools and guns. You can rail against gender differences if you want, I've yet to hear a good argument though.

Besides I look terrible in Heels :-p

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[Anonymous Coward]

GirlInTraining wrote If she'd been a man presenting this, she'd have made the equivalent of surgeon general in her career.

Maybe; from the little I know she seemed very capable. But conversely, if she was a man nobody would feel the need to write an article about it.

Or he'd have been kicked out of the hospital where he worked and later put into an asylum like Ignaz Semmelweis. Oh and forgive the AC, I'm at a public terminal and I've forgotten my password.

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[ErkDemon]

Yeah, there's a classic little book by Darrell Huff called "How To Lie With Statistics", and it credits FN with being a pioneer in the art of the misleading graph. :)

FN wanted the Crimean statistics to look as horrifying as possible.

The little Huff book is excellent, and very well known (and inexpensive!), so I think that most people who've read a bit about statistics probably already know the Florence Nightingale story.

Re:Mod me down, but you know I'm right

[gregbot9000]

It strikes me that we aren't really arguing about the same things. My position is that history has value in lessons learned but the arguments used at the time are not applicable.

The Suffragettes argued for the right to vote. Arguing for the right to vote today would be an anachronism at best. Your parent post seemed to be arguing against Gender Discrimination using it's loss to society as an example of why Gender Discrimination was bad, a position that's accepted unquestionably in the US.

My position is that Gender Discrimination is a minor aspect in today society that is shrinking rapidly, therefor the old arguments against Gender Discrimination are marginally relevant to today's society.

Since we both hold the position that Gender Discrimination is morally wrong the key here is what we should be arguing over, which is A) What exactly is Gender Discrimination, and B) Whether or not Gender Discrimination still exists in any large way.

I believe Gender Discrimination to be any negative or POSITIVE treatment based on gender by individuals or institutions. I also believe that Gender Discrimination is marginal and shrinking fast, therefore arguments against it are marginally relevant.

I know all about Qualitative studies of the Wage Gap and Glass Ceiling that show American business to be Sexist pigs, I also know a lot about Quantitative studies of the economics, and woman's differing career goals, that show the results are not clear enough to make a call one way or the other. Females make $.75 for every $1 a male makes, but it is not proof of Gender Discrimination, only different goals and motives.

I've read the reports and I don't see the Gender Discrimination on the part of the state or society, you can call me a trained monkey but I only go by the facts as presented.

Another place where we seemed to lose touch is about violating social mores. What I should have said is 'it doesn't mean jack about systematic gender discrimination.' There is widespread discrimination against culture and things that violate the excepted social mores, this is true, but it is not Gender Discrimination, it is run of the mill Discrimination.

You seem to be of the position that gender differences in GENERAL mean systematic discrimination, Which is a position that has merit but one I do not agree with.

I believe gender and culture roles that are IMPOSED are discrimination, and that there is a lot of work to be done to end discrimination on that front. I also believe that most gender roles and their norms are a continuation of biology(nature, not nurture) and willingly taken on by individuals, not Patriarchal or cultural repression. I also believe that education is vital to overcoming "our genes" and "poo flinging" urges, but the fact that it is human behavior can not be denied. We've managed to cut back the human urge to murder anyone who looks at you cross-ways, so I think we can move forward.

That is Liberation in general not Woman's Liberation. Arguing that Florence Nightingale's discrimination because she was a woman was a detriment to society is not relevant today. The lessons learned from it that discriminating against someone because they do not follow traditional norms is a completely different argument and not one you were making.

The Lady Tasting Tea

[Anonymous Coward]

...by David Salsburg mentioned Florence Nightingale (jeez, who proofreads Slashdot contributions?):

...the real Florence Nightingale was a woman with missions. She was also a self-educated statistician.

        One of Nightingale's missions was to force the British army to maintain field hospitals and supply nursing and medical care to soldiers in the field. To support her position, she plowed through piles of data from the army files. In them, she showed how most of the deaths in the British army during the Crimean War were due to the illnesses contracted outside the field of battle, or that occurred long after action as a result of wounds suffered in battle but left unattended.

Although I think her most lasting legacy was to lend her name to the daughter of her friends, Florence Nightingale David, who went on to make valuable contributions to combinatorics and statistics.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Credit?

[Jeheto]

Nightingale didn't get the credit she deserved, but I don't think that credit is really what matters here. Yes, she did it, but shouldn't we look at the results rather than the person who caused them? I do not know much about Nightingale, but most people who choose to work in the medical field back then did it out of selflessness. You didn't become a doctor because you wanted glory, you became a doctor because you wanted to help people.

Re:Better graph

[aevans]

That chart looks exactly like a "wind rose" found in pilot books for at least 100 years before that. It was a common statistical diagram on charts used by sailors to show the odds of a wind blowing from each compass point at a certain time of year.

Re:Prior art on Microsoft.

[IWannaBeAnAC]

I was the one that modded it as a troll (and by posting here I am undoing it). It is now modded +5 Funny, and yeah in hindsight it is funny. But at the time I modded it Troll, it was +2 Insightful, which I thought was an abomination. Insightful?

I was thinking in particular over all of the critisism powerpoint (and other packages) have received for making it so easy to produce manipulative and misleading graphics. Plenty of stuff on Edward Tufte's site, eg on Nasa abusing powerpoint to mislead management, resulting in poor decisions, in particular the Columbia accident.

Inventor?!?!?

[Secret Rabbit]

From even the summery:

"""
Statistics had been presented using graphics only a few times previously
"""

So, she didn't invent them then, now did she. One of the first, fine. One of the ones to popularise its use, fine. But, invent, hardly.

From a bio of Nightingale by Lucy Parsons

[influenza]

History is full of women who's contributions have been forgotten. Another one is Lucy Parsons. Her and her husband were anarchist labour leaders in Chicago where they helped organize the events known as the Haymarket Riots which gave the rest of the world May Day.

The Chicago police called her "more dangerous than a thousand rioters" and she was a major influence on labor politics until she died in a house fire in 1942 that also consumed most of her many writings.

In 1905 she wrote this piece for The Liberator, published October 22:

FAMOUS WOMEN OF HISTORY: Florence Nightingale

Amid the general consternation, the minister of war wrote a letter to Miss Nightingale, stating that he considered her the only person in Great Britain capable of bringing order out of confusion, and imploring her to organize and direct the reform of the military hospitals; and this letter was crossed by one from Miss Nightingale, volunteering to place her strength and ability at the service of her nation. Good trained nurses were almost unknown quantities in those days; yet, nothing daunted, Florence Nightingale sailed from England with thirty of the best nurses that she could muster within the week from her letter. In required a good deal of tact to overcome the prejudices and jealousies among the physicians and surgeons at the "womanly prominence" and the conciliate the general disapproval of medical and military officials. For these were the days when it was considered that "the proper place for the woman is at home."

Overcoming professional jealousy, she set herself to the task of cleansing the Augean hospitals containing over 4,000 patients. These barrack hospitals at Scutari, which had been loaned to the British government by the Sultan of Turkey, were 100 feet above the Bosporus. The day before the arrival of the staff of nurses the wounded from Balaclava had been landed; packed in the overcrowded transports, their wounds had not been dressed for five days, and cholera and fever were reaping their fearful harvest. The poor men outside with cold and starvation were faring far better than the sufferers in the tainted wards of the disordered hospitals.

-------------

I got this out of "Lucy Parsons: Freedom, Equality and Solidarity".

Off the top of my head, some other woman who have been mostly forgotten include Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (a co-founder of the ACLU), Ada Lovelace (perhaps earliest programmer), Hedy Lamarr (co-invented spread spectrum wireless communications years before it was technologically practical to implement, but better known for being a babe). How many people here know the name Rosalind Franklin? All of these women and many more excelled in male dominated fields.

Re:oh god

[Linker3000]

I always consider I'm onto a loser when I begin a sentence with:

"You'd think that..."

or

"You would assume..." ...especially when people are involved.

Re:Prior art on Microsoft.

[hey!]

The fault isn't the tool, the fault is education.

I can hardly count the number of managers I've met who've claimed to be "visual thinkers". Without denying such a thing might exist, I've seldom seen any evidence of outstanding "visual reasoning" from such people.

For example, I often use diagrams as an adjunct to my reasoning, and find that "visual thinkers" often have strong opinions about the aesthetic aspects of these diagrams. Seldom is the opinion about things in the diagram that carry semantic information: spatial, thematic or topological relationships for example. Furthermore, their aesthetic contributions aren't very aesthetically sophisticated, demonstrating of bad typography choices, cluttered compositions, insensitivity to color complementarity and value.

I call their claims into doubt because I have known unusual individuals who could be described as visual thinkers. One was an architect who was nearly incomprehensible without a pencil in his hand, but wonderfully eloquent with one. None of these people ever claimed to be "visual thinkers", as if that were a loftier kind of cognition. I suspect that's because it is not how a "visual thinker" would conceive of or express the distinction between themselves and "normal".

It is my opinion that the popularity of claiming to be a "visual thinker" stems from "visual reasoning" not being part of most people's education. An opinion justified as "visual thinking" is therefore unlikely to meet an informed challenge. Put most "visual thinkers" in front of a panel of artists or architects, and they will be reluctant to claim that label for themselves.

I happen to think that computer based presentations are very useful communications tools, but you really have to start by having something worth saying.