Storytelling, journalism, visualization, and science: A discussion in Nature Methods

If you are a scientist, a journalist, or a designer, you may be interested in the discussion I reproduce below. Let me give you some background information: A few months ago, Martin Krzywinski and I wrote an article about storytelling and visualization for Nature Methods magazine.

The current issue of the magazine, published today, includes a critique of it written by Yarden Katz, a neuroscience graduate student at MIT. Martin and I wrote a formal response to Katz's letter, also for the current issue. The Nature Methods team thought that the conversation was interesting enough to devote an editorial piece to it.

Finally, I decided to write my own, more informal response. If you read it, you will understand why. I believe that Katz misinterprets what journalism and visualization are (or should be, ideally.) And he's not the only scientist to do so. For good reason, perhaps.

Anyway, the links:

• The first article
• Yarden Katz's letter
• Our "formal" response in the magazine
• Nature Methods' editorial about the discussion
• My personal response, about journalism, evidence, storytelling, and science