SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t yet taken our Science Knowledge Quiz, please do so before reading this any further because we give away one of the answers.
In a recent survey of what Americans know about science, we asked people to interpret the chart you see here and tell us what it showed. Six-in-ten (63%) identify the best interpretation of this chart as “the more sugar people eat, the more likely they are to get cavities.”
This kind of chart — known as a scatterplot — is very familiar to people who are used to working with numbers, such as economists, scientists, researchers and data journalists. It is a good way to show a relationship between two variables.
Please visit http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/16/the-art-and-science-of-the-scatterplot/ to continue reading this article.
