How Charts Lie goes on to talk about the Garbage In, Garbage Out principle. Cairo uses a map of Europe showing the origin of rock bands. Since I have never been a rock fan, it surprised me that there was a preconceived notion that most of the rock bands originate in the Scandinavian countries. While the details of specific bands did not stick in my head, the main take-away from Cairo’s discussion was that he does his research before sending a map to his friends. He makes the argument that the average chart reader should also make sure that the source of a chart is not garbage. I am inclined to think that the burden of determining if the source of a chart is garbage should not be placed on the reader of a chart IF the chart is published in a newspaper. Is it realistic to expect my mom to fact check the charts that appear on Eenadu, a Telugu news paper that she follows religiously)? The burden of source-checking should fall on the creator of the chart, and their colleagues. However, in the age of social media, I could generate a chart with a crappy data source that affirms what people already believe but is just surprising enough to capture the reader’s interest. Such a post would definitely go viral. Cairo’s attempt to teach the reader to play their part in source-checking could be a viable solution, but all it takes is one person to send the chart to all their WhatsApp groups for a garbage chart to take footing. Another point that is well developed is the need for the reader to figure out the terms in the chart. I used a chart looking at the ‘incidence’ of ‘obesity’ in different states when I was giving a poster presentation at the Washington University St. Louis Amgen Scholars Program. I was really surprised at the technical definition for terms like ‘incidence’ and ‘obesity.’ This is the inherent threat that comes with using terminology that the public already knows. There might be a misalignment between the criteria for inclusion as ‘obese’ and how the public perceives someone who is ‘obese.’ Interesting fact: a person’s perception of healthy weight is dependent on their community.