Visualization that makes me want to go hang myself

The obesity diagram.

The 108 drivers of obesity were compiled from 38 science reviews, and woven into a systemic diagram by the positive and negative influence arrows that ultimately link the variables into a web of causal relationships.

The visualization really does help, especially the dynamic legend that highlights clusters of causality. However, it would be useful if the relationship between driver and sourcing in the science reviews were shown. If we’ve learned anything about media behavior in the last decade, it’s that the unsourced is not untrustworthy. So many of these visualizations are one-way broadcasts from expert to consumer; there seems to be no idea at the conceptual, let alone the technical, level, of that data/information/knowledge/wisdom could be developed collaboratively, in a community setting.

But 108 drivers? All deeply intertwingled and -twingling? That’s discouraging.