I felt that the article on visual data in science was reasonably well-done, and I actually think that it would have made for some good discussion in class. The idea that scientists (and people who are interested in scientific research or who bother to look at it) rely largely on visual renderings of data is something that seems obvious once it is pointed out, but is perhaps not a facet of the scientific project that is typically made subject to scrutiny. It becomes more and more apparent to me that scientific "knowledge" is constrained by the mediums thanks to which it is collected and disseminated - the visual tendency of data is no exception. I believe that human understanding is largely informed by our spacial/visual faculties. They occupy a very prominent position in our stream of sensory engagement - this arrangement applies beyond our sensory experience and suggests a parallel to our grapples with the conceptual and numerical. The problem is that numbers in data are not, metaphysically speaking, visual/spatial entities in any total sense. They can be represented visually as in graphs, topographical maps, etc. but one must take care to ensure that the visual constructs are set up in such a way that they do not incline the viewer toward a distorted understanding of the data. The visual mediums should be used, I would argue, but with a careful acknowledgment of their inherent limitations. (This is the point that I suspect could provoke a good debate.)
Eamon