I have a different problem that I would also describe as a Church of Graphs.

I keep reading essays in which the author makes some claim and supports it by displaying a graph. The graph is not explained other than as proof that the claim it supports is correct. The axes are unlabeled, or labeled with meaningless abbreviations.

Apparently enough people find this persuasive that the practice has become widespread. But why?

Here I was, baited by the idea that it was a rejection of knowledge graphs and the semantic web...