Why should we be suspicious?

[coolernato]

In the section "Visualising the Data", there is a sentence which reads "The result is a roughly linear rise and fall, which is suspicious: we might instead expect a sharper rise and slower fall." However, there is no discussion about why this is suspicious. In this episode, there is no description of what this data represents (and there is no reason to think the average student has any knowledge of the development of inflammation over time). Is this the reported inflammation following an operation, for example? This information could be included at the start of the episode.

Even with the knowledge of what this information represents, we still have no reason for a student to believe the behaviour is "suspicious" or that the proposed alternative behaviour would be less suspicious. It also doesn't appear to serve a point regarding the usage of Python/matplotlib. Would it make sense to remove this sentence to reduce potential confusion?

For contrast, later, the facts that the maximum is perfectly linear and the minimum is a series of steps are commented on. However, here, the oddness of these behaviours is more intuitive and it is directly tied to the observation that it would be difficult to spot this behaviour without plotting the data. As such, this section seems much more reasonable to be left unaltered as it is clearer and serves an obvious instructional purpose.

[coolernato]

Reading the title page again, I see that the data is for inflammation following a "new treatment". With no other information about what this treatment is, it seems odd that inflammation would increase at all, if it was stable before the treatment. Much clarification is needed before any comments can realistically be made about what behaviour might be expected from the data.