tufte-evidence-corruptionlisted

# Corruption in Evidence Presentations: Effects Without Causes, Cherry-Picking, Overreaching, Chartjunk, and the Rage to Conclude ## Overview Making a presentation is a moral act as well as an intellectual activity. *Beautiful Evidence* ch. 6 catalogs corrupt presentation techniques that are "enemies of the truth, that corrupt reasoning, that produce unbeautiful anti-evidence." The five named corruption types — effects without causes, cherry-picking, overreaching/economisting, chartjunk, and the rage to conclude — range from subtle language choices (passive voice) to systematic research design failures (poor controls) to organizational pathologies (bureaucracies of secondary presentation). Each has a concrete detection method. The chapter draws on the 9/11 Commission Report, the Chalmers portcaval shunt study, Galenson's art history book, and the evidence reduction chain to show how corruption operates at every stage from data collection to published report. --- ## §1. Effects Without Causes and the Evasion of Responsibility ### The 9/11 Commission: Passive Voice as Corruption The opening case is the *Report of the 9/11 Commission* (2004), p. 265, describing security lapses that may have allowed the attacks. The passage Tufte examines lists seven distinct failures — domestic agencies never mobilized, no direction or plan was established, borders were not hardened, transportation systems were not fortified, electronic surveillance was not targeted at domestic threats, st