Why are the default values for viridis ‘light is more’, when the ‘dark is more’ bias (darker colors map to larger quantities) is so well documented (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4).
Some recent guidance suggests that ‘light is more’ is only suitable when the background in dark (which is usually isn’t with ggplot2).
I can see that Claus Wilke has written that ‘a properly designed sequential scale should present a continuous gradient from dark to light colors’, but not sure what is the basis for that claim.
I’m asking because I’m looking to justify my response to a journal editor who asks that I reverse the default viridis colour scale for all the figures in my manuscript (preprint is here).
I’ve also asked this question as an issue on the GitHub repo for the viridis package