I have always had trouble with the pyramid diagram because of its inverse relationship between weight at the bottom and importance or dominance at the top. Above is one of the older food pyramids. It tells us that we eat (or should eat?) mostly grains, then less fruit and veg, even less dairy and fish, then meat, and in the smallest space at the top, sugar and oils are what we should eat the least. (This has since been changed to have vegetables at the bottom, but whatevs.) But the pyramid diagram implies a hierarchy as though the things at the top are more important, or based on the things below, which is obviously untrue in this case. This should most definitely be a pie chart.
Here’s a pyramid that makes total sense:
In this pyramid it shows how most living things on earth are bacteria/fungi etc. (on the bottom) which are fed upon by the next layer up, which is also less populous. This continues up the pyramid with more specialized and rarer creatures at the top living on the creatures below—and gives rise to the term “apex predator.” What I particularly like about this is it can be read just as naturally from top to bottom.
The “pyramid scheme” pyramid also works well, where the majority of the people at the bottom work and earn either a pittance or lose money, and each layer up has fewer people doing less work but earning more money off of the people below, until at the top there is 1 or a few people doing nothing while earning piles of money off of the people below.
Here’s another:
This sort of works, but while there’s a hierarchy from lowly measurements up to information and then knowledge at the top, and there is the sense that each layer is based on the layer below it, I’m not convinced that there are e.g. more measurements than information, or less knowledge than wisdom. This information would be better served by a block structure which shows the progression of steps, but doesn’t narrow at the top.
This one makes no sense to me:
I’m deeply suspicious of the idea of the central nervous system as a pyramid, with “academic learning” at the very top. I think this needs to be some kind of “tree” diagram.
This visually offensive diagram is a classic example of my confusion as to why what is deemed least effective is at the top. This should be either a bar graph, or a pie chart, or something not-a-pyramid.
And here’s one that makes no sense whatsoever:
There is no relationship between volume or effectiveness between these methods of argument as you go up the pyramid. Ad hominem attacks are no more valuable than Name-calling. There are no fewer instances of Contradiction than there are of Responding to tone. Counter argument and Refutation are relatively equal approaches to argument. And finally, Refuting the central point isn’t a method of argument the same way the others are, but, rather, a summary or finalé dependent on the 2 layers below it, but not on the layers below that. This is not a pyramid, it’s a list.
I started thinking about this today when I came across a version of the following diagram online, where the top, yellow triangle was filled with something we could paraphrase as “internet trolls insist on their version of the truth”. Meaning to be funny—like, in the eyes of crazy people, their insane ideas are the ultimate truth, regardless of what objective data proves.
But I got bogged down in my usual pyramid confusion. At the base are “Expert opinions” What experts? Are these the most numerous … or the least important … or the base of everything above? Further up, I get that randomised controlled trials are better and fewer than non-randomized controlled studies, but aren’t those the things that lead to scientific conclusions from which “experts” get their ideas? In this case, shouldn’t the bottom be “Hypotheses”? And if the funny apex is “whatever internet crazies say is the truth” why is it the smallest piece?
I suggested the diagram should be block towers which the yellow “internet crazies” are flying into. Meanwhile, I looked for the source of the diagram.
This version more or less makes sense. We can see how each layer is built upon the layer below, and the quality increases as the process ascends, and maybe (maybe) the amount of information or conclusions get fewer as the data is refined. I still don’t see what “expert opinion” is doing in the bottom layer though.
So if I wanted to make this into a funny diagram about internet crazies refuting all evidence, I might do this …
But to be honest, I still wouldn’t make it a pyramid!
Meanwhile, below is the stupidest pyramid I’ve ever seen in my life:
…
The "expert opinion" base of the evidence pyramid is using a friendly term whereas in fact it ought to be more disparaging.
A better term was coined by Professor of clinical pharmacology University of Aberdeen, James Colquhoun Petrie. He described these people as GOBSAT - “Good Old Boys Sat Around the Table”
It is supposed to describe the idea of the doctor who bases his or her clinical decisions on the "received wisdom" of people like themselves - often dependent on prejudice, myth, personal experience and preferences. Club wisdom in other words.