Yesterday I bumped into the story of John Snow who was able to end the cholera epidemic in London 1854 very quickly because of his innovative way of combining observations and drawing the respective conclusions. He applied statistics and graphics. So does my beloved Hans Rosling (those who pass by here on a regular basis know my fondness for him). It is dazzling what figures can tell us, if we manage to visualize them, extract them from the obscurity of myriads of columns of figures. Rosling is an artist in doing so.
If you find some time to listen to his talk, you may realize the similarity of their mindsets. John Snow did a mapping of London’s epidemic and Rosling does the same, only is it a mapping with a global approach. The problem(s) they analyze with their respective methods lead them to the same conclusion: looking at a situation on a local level, discriminating, contextualizing is more rewarding than anticipating and generalizing.
