Week 7: Tufte and Kostelnick and Roberts

1) I think Snow offers an interesting point in regards to the visual of the charts playing a major role in the Challenger disaster; however, I also believe that visuals were not as defining a factor as he makes them out to be, and I say this from a rhetorical analysis. First of all, some mechanic in NASA says that the O-rings are not going to seal at such cold temperatures. What ethos exists? He can make all of the charts he wants, but by the time those charts have worked their way through the hierarchy, whatever information he had is probably lost through the bureaucracy, time constraints, financial resistance, and the fact that he is a lowly mechanic. I would venture to guess that verbal discourse was at as much fault, if not more so, than the poorly constructed charts.

2) Kostelnick and Roberts make the point that rhetorical situation relies heavily upon who the audience is (4). One thing I will notice in the Tufte article is that the audience is unknown, OK, some officials at NASA, but what does that mean? If the information started with mechanics and worked its way to the director, what can you devise from the charts? Aside from the use of little representative rockets, which was probably in hindsight, not the best design choice, could we not entertain the idea that the chart maker was using some unorthodox design to perhaps shock and awe? I just have a hard time believing that visuals were a main culprit in the disaster. Information travels in many different ways, what about the memo's or reports that accompanied the charts, perhaps a contextual analysis and content analysis would provide further insight into their purpose and presentation. I do think that Tufte makes a valid point in echoing what we have been discussing in regards to visual representation playing a major role. Obviously these documents failed (on some level) to do their job, and certainly did not prevent the disaster from taking place.

3) I think one of the striking differences in the Tufte article when he compares Snow's charts to that of Challenger's is the different methodologies he employs. Tufte gives Snow's piece a thorough content analysis. He identifies the conceptual and relational as well as qualitative and quantitative relationships existing in his report. We can also note that his charts reflect empirical research taking place at the time of the epidemic. Although suspicions were raised at NASA about the faultiness of the O-rings at such cold temperatures, the fact of the matter is, the disaster itself was only hypothetical as it had never happened before. So Tufte compared Snow's answer to an age old question, to a hypothetical situation. And as we can see, warnings are not always heeded, and information is lost in translation as the Columbia shuttle disaster will attest to. But is it the fault of the documents? Tufte says that "Reliable knowledge grows from evidence that is collected, analyzed,and displayed with some good comparisons in view." So can we conclude that since O-rings were never tested during a flight that speculation is reliable knowledge? Feynman said that "The O-rings of the solid rocket boosters were not designed to erode. Erosion was a clue that something was wrong. Erosion was not something from which safety can be inferred." Could we say then that the charts did do their job, but those interpreting them and those responsible for the decision just did not heed the warnings?

I guess my question would be at what point do you make the distinction between the visual doing its job or failing and the reader choosing to ignore the advice or failing to make a correct decision because of a poor visual?