Forum:Pie Charts: to use or not to use

Question

[littlebioinformatician]

Hello! I’m a bit confused and was hoping to get some clarification. In several of my statistics lectures, we were strongly advised against using pie charts to represent data. The argument was that they can easily misrepresent proportions, exaggerate differences, and generally distort interpretation—essentially, that they should be avoided altogether. In fact, making pie charts in some statistical packages is not supported or deprecated.

However, I’ve noticed that pie charts are still frequently used in biology published articles, including in high-impact journals, particularly to illustrate proportions/distributions.

Given this, I wanted to ask: Is it ever acceptable to use pie charts to explain proportions in scientific work, or are they generally discouraged across the board? Thank you in advance :)

Answer 1

[Bastien Hervé]

Your first paragraph is answering the latter and as said in the second paragraph, one cannot force people not to use it.

It is like RPKM/FPKM for read counts, it is not optimal, it skews the interpretation, better methods exist. Nevertheless, some people (not to mention old PI) are attached to it and still rely on it.

To bring some contrast, the only application I would see for pie charts in "Science" is for popularization, a pie chart talks to everyone, from a grandchild to a grandparent.

Answer 2

[Joe]

As with any visualisation method, there is a time and a place for them. They are often misused, or used when a different method would be better, but I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with them if done well (3D or stacked pie charts however are entirely unnecessary)

I use them from time to time in our biotech pitch decks (e.g. to show relative market share of different technologies), but this a more 'soft' use case.