Data Visualization, let them wonder
By: Gustavo Hideo
Tags: Dataviz, Data Analysis, Data Science, Data, Data Visualization

2 — The Island of Knowledge

The concept of “the island of knowledge” is simple, and it’s stated by Ralph W. Sockman as “The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder”. Our understanding of a subject is like the size of an island, and its shoreline represents how far we can think, ponder and question about it.

Marcelo Gleiser wrote a book entitled “The Island of Knowledge. The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning”, and he gives this definition:

“The knowledge that we have defines the knowledge that we can have. As knowledge shifts, we ask new kinds of questions that we couldn’t have anticipated”².

Data visualization is a powerful way to increase our island of knowledge. It can give us those different perspectives that will increase the size of our island and consequently enlarge the shoreline of wonder. It will enable us to think of questions we couldn’t before. Alberto Cairo uses the island of knowledge to teach about data visualization in his book “the truthful art”³ in a very insightful way. I recommend reading it.

At the beginning of 2019, I worked on a visualization that represents this concept. I was looking into the stocks of Petrobras (PBR, a Brazilian company) to decide if it was a good moment to buy it. I was staring at the following chart:

Petrobras Stocks

My eyes went straight to the period of 2013–2016. I wondered what happened there to make those shares fall so drastically. I then realized that within those years, a huge operation was in progress in Brazil to investigate corruption between the government and Petrobras. I studied more about that and put together some important events in the government and in the operation against corruption to find any correlation with PBR stocks. The image below is the result of my research (click here for the full page):

Since Dilma Rousseff was elected the president of Brazil in 2012 and changed the leadership of Petrobras, the stocks started falling and hitting the lowest prices in the past 13 years. The red area shows the period where nearly 30 people were arrested being accused of corruption, and it’s followed by the lowest price level. The first plot made me ask new questions, enlarge my island of knowledge, and find new perspectives. Now my shoreline of wonder is larger and the island can grow bigger. How corruption in government have affected other companies or other parts of the economy? Can I use the government’s corruption to predict stock prices?

Data visualization is powerful, it can change, improve and save the world. It’s key to bringing new perspectives and innovation. Next time that you go to work on your data collection or visualization designs, remember the island of knowledge and make it so that your readers will wonder about new questions they never had before.

Data visualization is powerful, it can change, improve and save the world. It’s key to bringing innovation. As you create and design your next visualizations, do your data exploration with these concepts in mind. It will lead you to provide new faces of the data and knowledge for your readers. You will enable them to ask deeper questions. Let them wonder!