www.sciencemag.

org/cgi/content/full/333/6048/1393/DC1

Supporting Online Material for

Visualizing Uncertainty About the Future

David Spiegelhalter,* Mike Pearson, Ian Short

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: d.spiegelhalter@statslab.cam.ac.uk

Published 9 September 2011, Science 333, 1393 (2011)

DOI: 10.1126/science.1191181

This PDF file includes:

Figs. S1 to S7
References (72, 73)

Other supporting material includes the following:

Movie S1. http://understandinguncertainty.org/nightingale

Animated version of Nightingale’s celebrated roses.

Movie S2. http://understandinguncertainty.org/comparison

Multiple formats for comparing risks.

Movie S3. http://understandinguncertainty.org/screening

Analysis of screening tests.
Figure S1. Retrospectively assessed chances of loss of the space shuttle following each launch,
with explanations of changes in risk communicated in multiple numerical formats (31).

Figure S2. (A) Icon array depicting 100 possible 10-year futures for David Spiegelhalter if he takes
statins each day. In 7 possible futures he will have a heart attack or stroke, but in 3 futures his heart
attack or stroke will be prevented by the drug. Of course, if he is fine after 10 years he will have no
idea if it was because of the drug – in fact there is only 3 in 100 chance that the drug will be of
benefit to him (B) The same information portrayed using scattered icons, which gives a greater
impression of the unpredictability of life, at the cost of decreased ability to assess the magnitude of
the potential benefit.

Figure S3. The probability for Obama (blue line) and McCain (red line) winning the 2008 US
Presidency as expressed in an online betting exchange each day in the run-up to the election (72).

Figure S4. (A) Risk ladder comparing medical risks from anaesthesia with everyday risks such as
winning the UK lottery (73). (B) ‘Riskometer’ comparing deaths from pollution with other causes
using a magnification of a linear scale (52).

Figure S5. Probability contours for wind gusts above 30 knots over Northern Europe provided by
the UK Meteorological Office. This forms part of an animated sequence that vividly depicts the
possible developments of weather patterns, and may be compared with the more limited
representation of tornado risk in Fig. 5D.

Figure S6. A word cloud in which the font size is proportional to the chance of a tennis player
winning the men’s singles tournament at Wimbledon 2011. The probabilities were adapted from
odds supplied by the bookmakers William Hill on 1 June 2011, and only the 24 highest rated
players are shown, with their quoted odds standardised to add to 100%. A deficiency of word
clouds in general is that only relative risks are portrayed, and there is no part-to-whole comparison.

Figure S7. A tree map which displays the same information as Fig. S6. The area of each rectangle
represents the probability, according to odds supplied by William Hill on 1 June 2011, that the
corresponding player will win the men’s singles tournament at Wimbledon 2011.
Additional references

72. D. Spiegelhalter, in Risk: Darwin Lectures (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011).

73. A. F. Smith, Discussion of risk pervades doctor-patient communication. BMJ 325, 548 (2002).
http://understandinguncertainty.org/node/222
(A) (B)
Nadal Hewitt

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