[denton-scratch]

Well, that seems a particularly tricky chart to interpret.

In this case, I haven't read the article the chart was taken from; I don't know what argument the chart is supposed to support. Stripped of that context, it's a pretty confusing chart. It seems the author (of the SciAm article - Cairo) is using the chart to make a point about lying with charts. I don't think that Cairo is publishing his research on obesity and birth-weight - that seems to be Kitahara et al. If that's what's going on, then it's hardly surprising that the chart is hard to read; Cairo chose it to make exactly that point.

And I think he's being unfair to Kitahara et al., implying that they've deliberately contrived that chart to mislead.