Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think

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Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Hans Rosling (Author), Ola Rosling (Author), Anna Rosling Rönnlund (Author),

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Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of carrying only opinions for which you have strong supporting facts.

When asked simple questions about global trends - why the world's population is increasing; how many young women go to school; how many of us live in poverty - we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers.

In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and a man who can make data sing, Hans Rosling, together with his two longtime collaborators Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens and reveals the 10 instincts that distort our perspective.

It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.

Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world.

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Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World - And Why Things Are Better Than You Think

Hans Rosling (Author), Ola Rosling (Author), Anna Rosling Rönnlund (Author)

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Product details

Listening Length	7 hours and 59 minutes
Author	Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund
Narrator	Simon Slater
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	03 April 2018
Publisher	Sceptre
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B0787M4JWY
Best Sellers Rank	891 in Audible (See Top 100 in Audible) 116 in Business & Money 167 in Business & Economics

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A Fool's Errand

Reviewed in Australia on 10 July 2018

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This is a well-written book that will fail in its objective to get us to put facts first.

As Scott Adams explains in Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter, people are persuaded mainly through emotion even though we think that we arrived at a position through rational arguments based on facts.

Rosling does address several issues with facts:
- how accurate is the data?
- they are contested (especially if they seem to conflict with one's beliefs)
- barriers to access to facts - not all facts are readily accessible to everyone either through cost, knowing where to look, or understanding what the facts mean.
- political agendas behind the collection and dissemination of facts.

Rosling's anecdotes help to expand on his points.

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PeterNZ

A book more people should read

Reviewed in Australia on 22 May 2018

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Statistics, boring, dry. We have a saying in Germany, "Never trust a statistic you haven't faked yourself" But this book showed what a beautiful tool statistics can be. How they can help us to understand our world, our life. This book shows that statistics or better, data can show us beauty and progress. This book helps the reader to see reality. Not the reality the media wants us to see but the reality which is the real life. The beauty of it is that this can be applied to how you look at the world's problems and to the challenges you and I face in our lives.

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Rajesh Shanbhag

"Data as a therapy"

Reviewed in Australia on 26 August 2018

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Factfulness is a truly inspiring book; it opens our thinking windows to our world and makes us see it like we never have before.

The author of the book is Hans Rosling, a professor of international health and a world-renowned public educator. Hans has presented his statistics and charts at several UN, World Economic Forum and other public and private forums. He has some very captivating talks at TED. He and his son Ola and daughter-in-law Anna have been instrumental in developing the “moving bubble chart” presentation that would wow any audience (watch his TED talks).

In this book the author Hans Rosling asserts, supported by his personal experiences, that we are largely wrong about our knowledge on the progress of humankind. He surmises that we are wrong not because of out-of-date knowledge, but because our ingrained opinions are not based on facts. He calls this the “overdramatic worldview” which is fed by news that makes us think the world is getting more violent, more frightening and more hopeless. He opines that if we don’t control our dramatic worldview, we might focus on wrong priorities or reach incorrect conclusions.

He starts the book with a startling set of 13 questions; and challenges us to perform better than chimpanzees (who might pick 33% answers correctly). He comforts his reader that even the well-educated, the Nobel laureates, the renowned economists have fared worse than the chimpanzees.

By the end of the book, Hans will convince you, based on facts from UN and presented in form of charts and tables, that the world is improving “not on every single measure every single year, but as a rule… This is a fact-based worldview”. He uses several charts and statistics to prove his point including a chart on “guitars per capita” as a statistic on human progress!!! By exposing our human instincts, Hans provide tips to his readers in controlling those instincts.

Why do we divide the world into “West and the rest” “developing and developed countries” (gap instinct) when facts show that the gap between these worlds has almost disappeared? “Factfulness is … recognizing when a decision feels urgent and remembering that it rarely is” (urgency instinct)? Are we not generalising the destiny of a continent like Africa (destiny instinct) and thereby foregoing the vast investment opportunities there for the smaller gains we make in the West? Instead of generalising countries into developed and developing countries, Hans prefers to group them into 4 levels based on the income. (Blame instinct) “remembering that blaming an individual often steals the focus from other possible explanations and blocks our ability to prevent similar problems in the future”.

As Hans puts it “This is data as you have never known it: it is data as therapy. It is understanding as a source of mental peace. Because the world is not as dramatic as it seems.” This book makes a compelling read. It presents a socio-economic story based on facts from UN and other organisations and presented by Hans in his own quintessential style. He exposes our own personal prejudices and instincts and enforces upon us to use a fact-based worldview.

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Tony

Well worth a read if you think your current perception of the world is accurate - you'll probably be very surprised.

Reviewed in Australia on 24 June 2018

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Quite the eye opener. Definitely enjoyed the language of the author as it made for a fun read while conveying the facts well. I especially liked the 'I Don't Have Any Vision' story about the speech in 2013 at "The African Renaissance and Agenda for 2063 on page 180-181 as it perfectly surmised - at least my - current way of thinking, not that I can be proud to admit that but the idea is for us to realise and grow.

It was definitely written for it's time so you need to consciously remember when it was written. I think the fundamental concept will remain valid for many years but for the years to come you need to remember it's based on a particular time of the world and not necessarily the current reality.

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Paul

Such a challengingly enlightening read

Reviewed in Australia on 30 January 2019

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In my life’s work, I spend most of my time mentoring young people to think differently about themselves, their life situations and, most critically, their thinking. I have lost count of the number of them and others with whom I have excitedly shared what this wonderful book has taught me.

Factfulness as a book is a most valuable contribution to correctly realigning our worldview.

Factfulness as a code for living is even more important because it stretches us to make sure that what we know is right and, more importantly, how we respond is appropriate.

What a legacy has been left by Hans.

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Julian Mather

Full of facts, full of thinking, brimming with opportunity

Reviewed in Australia on 6 June 2018

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Even if you don't read this book cover to cover, just scan it. Cherry pick it. It will make you pause and ask yourself, 'If my view of the world was so misaligned with how the world actually is, then what else am I thinking that is, in some way, harmful to the life I want to lead.' The question this book raised for me is how am I self-sabotaging? Loved it.

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@tonymmorley

Progress Starts Here!

Reviewed in Australia on 29 July 2018

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One of the most important books of 2018 and well worth getting the hardback and audiobook. This book may well change your view on the current condition of civilization and the best plan forward. The world can be a much better place, and it's your job to do something about it.

"The next generation is like the last runner in a very long relay race. The race to end extreme poverty has been a marathon, with the starter gun fired in 1800." Hans Rosling, Factfulness: @HansRosling #progress #growth #tech #technology #science #business

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Cassie romances

Best book I've read this year!

Reviewed in Australia on 31 December 2018

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This is not my usual fair, but something everyone needs to read to gain a better understanding of the world and how it is changing. Things are better than you think and it is important we realise why so we can understand what works.

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S.P.

Good idea; but not quite worth a book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 September 2018

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I like the author a lot, but I think the content could fit into a 15 min TED talk. Oh, that’s right, it did (search his name on TED’s website). It’s worth 15 mins for sure - but the content in the book just did not expand enough to justify an actual book (seems there was some monetisation going on here - but I suppose everyone has the right to make money from their fame, posthumously, in his case - sadly). Unfortunately, I thought the author also fell foul of his own “lessons of what not to do” on several occassions - making “assumptions” without full investigation, or not defining things properly, etc. (He sets the bar high, to be fair). Example - he asks the reader to guess what % of the world population lives in extreme poverty (and he points out most people are guilty of using data from 20-30 years ago), but then he basically uses a definition of poverty from 20-30 years ago - without considering that the definition might also have progressed in the “common” sense of the word. So he should have been more specific about his definition before asking the question.

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Atul Kumar Singh

Read this review and save your money

Reviewed in India on 20 March 2019

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I just finished this book yesterday and to be honest, I have mixed feelings of what this book talks about.
The book literally begins with a tone of “Why I am right and everyone is wrong” – because I gave simple questions to a lot of people and they all got it wrong. Well, people got it wrong because they have been conditioned to it, it’s the failure of our education and society in general, nothing wrong with that. The whole premise of the book is that we need to open up our eyes to the wide array of positive changes that are taking place in the world, and the world is getting better at most of the metrics be it child mortality, per capita income, healthcare, deaths to due to diseases, children being vaccinated, literacy levels, gender equality and what not. On the face of it, yes, mostly the world is getting better and it can be proved with data and statistics.

What did I like about the book?
1. Rosling tells you to believe that world is getting better (and he proves so with the use of data), and at the same time keep an eye out for the bad things (because they need to be improved too). I think this is a realistic world view, where you celebrate the progress and keep working on improving the things that need attention.
2. Every statement is supported by facts, figures, charts and a lot of data (simple to understand).
3. The book basically imbibes a more realistic (if positive is too strong a word here) outlook towards the world.
4. You learn to look at data cautiously, trying to overcome your bias and instincts.
5. You learn to look at media publications, news etc with a pinch of salt and would know better than they prefer showing ‘bad’ stuff rather than ‘good’ stuff. The media blows everything out of proportion and unfortunately, most people believe it.
6. Finally, you learn about your 10 instincts and would be more aware of them whenever you hear any news or information that talks about how bad the world has become. You learn to look at things from multiple perspectives, suppress these instincts, and eventually be more rational.

What I did not like about the book?
1. The book is based on figures and statistics to prove the point. But as it’s true with statistics, there’s more to it than what meets the eye. For example, Rosling says there’s no such thing as a ‘Developed’ and ‘Developing’ country anymore, a majority of the countries are now ‘Middle Income’ countries. He’s right, no doubt about that. But what makes up a ‘Middle Income’ country. If you make more than $2 a day, you are in the middle-income group. But does that ensure a good living? What is the meaning of $2 in the context of living standards? Isn’t this progress so slow that many generations will not even witness the progress?
2. Rosling has used averages to convey the point of progress while cautioning the user against them at the same time. As compared to maybe a few decades ago, there are only 1 Billion people living at Level 1 (Extreme Poverty) and trends show you that this number has decreased drastically. But if you look at it in absolute terms, we are talking about 1 Billion people on this planet who don’t get enough food to eat on a daily basis! That’s a huge number.
3. Rosling has underplayed suffering and lack of resources, and covered it with the statistically correct ‘progress’. It’s like saying, so what if your food lacks nutrition and variety, at least you’re getting better than what you were getting a decade back. It’s funny really and seems such a farce at times. Definitely, he’s not wrong when he says progress has happened, but the meaning of ‘progress’ would differ for different people. His overall thesis, that we live in a much better world than we imagine, is comforting, but “better” might still be “terrible” in some cases.

Let’s look at the book summary now! Rosling talks about our ten ‘Dramatic Instincts’ (and 10 reasons why we are wrong about the world). Here they are –

1. The Gap Instinct - We tend to divide the things into 2 distinct groups and imagine a gap between them. To control gap instinct, look for the majority. Beware of the averages, if you look at the spread, the majority will overlap. Beware comparisons of extremes (Media loves to do it).

2. The Negativity Instinct - We tend to instinctively notice the bad more than the good. We need to learn to acknowledge the fact that things can be both ‘better’ and ‘bad’ at the same time. Example, education levels have improved over time, but still, 10% of the children don’t get any education, that’s bad. We also need to know that good news is never reported, media would hype the bad stuff always. Subsequently, gradual improvement isn’t reported either. Countries, government, media often try to glorify the past, so we need to be beware of these rosy pasts.

3. The Straight Line Instinct - When we see a line going up steadily, we tend to assume the line will continue to go up in the foreseeable future. To control this instinct, remember that curves come in different shapes. Finally, don’t assume straight lines if data doesn’t show it.

4. The Fear Instinct - We tend to perceive the world to be scarier than it really is. We overestimate the risks associated with violence, captivity, contamination etc. The world seems scarier because what you hear has been carefully selected to be told. Remember, Risk = Danger x Exposure, and act accordingly. Make decisions only when you’re calm, not when you are afraid.

5. The Size Instinct - We tend to see things out of proportion, over-estimating the importance of a single event/person that’s visible to us, and the scale of an issue based on a standalone number. A lonely number may seem impressive in isolation, but can be trivial in comparison to something else. Hence, always look for comparisons. Use the 80/20 rule. When comparing countries, look for rates per person.

6. The Generalization Instinct - We tend to wrongly assume that everything or everyone in a category is similar. Hence, we must look for differences within a group, look for similarities across groups and look for differences across groups. We should beware of the term ‘Majority’ – it can mean 51% or 99% or anything in between. Beware of vivid images, which are easier to recall but can be exceptions than the general norm.

7. The Destiny Instinct - We tend to assume that the destinies of people, cultures, countries etc. are predetermined by certain factors, and such factors are fixed and unchanging, i.e. their destinies are fixed. To control this, we must keep track of gradual changes and improvements. We should update our knowledge on different subjects, and look for examples of cultural changes.

8. The Single Perspective Instinct - We tend to focus on single causes or solutions, which are easier to grasp and make our problems seem easier to solve. It is better to look at problems from multiple perspectives. To control this, always test your ideas and allow people to find weaknesses. Don’t claim to be an expert at all times, be humble about your limited expertise in different areas.

9. The Blame Instinct - When something goes wrong, we instinctively blame it on someone or something. To control this, resist finding a scapegoat. Look for causes, not villains. Finally, look for systems and processes, not heroes.

10. The Urgency Instinct - We tend to rush into a problem or opportunity for fear that there’s no time and we may be too late. To control this, take small steps. Always insist on data rather than making hunch based hasty decisions. Always be aware of the side effects of your hasty decision to avoid making the same.

Favorite Quotes from the Book:
- “The world cannot be understood without numbers. And it cannot be understood with numbers alone.”
- “Being always in favor of or always against any particular idea makes you blind to information that doesn’t fit your perspective. This is usually a bad approach if you like to understand reality.”
- “Forming your worldview by relying on the media would be like forming your view about me by looking only at a picture of my foot. Sure, my foot is part of me, but it’s a pretty ugly part. I have better parts.”

To sum up, Factfulness is a good book that explains how our instincts sometimes distort our understanding of our world and why it's crucial to learn established facts that are now reliably and readily available. Our instincts might help in certain situations, but in others, critical thinking beyond emotions is necessary. However, we must learn to look beyond the displayed ‘progress’ also, because even lesser suffering can mean ‘progress’ statistically.

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Anand

The subtitle of the book - 10 reasons we're wrong about the world and why things are better than you think - stays true to his TED ...

Reviewed in India on 10 April 2018

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Most of you would have either seen the late Hans Rosling's TED talks or read about Bill Gates praising him on his blog. The subtitle of the book - 10 reasons we're wrong about the world and why things are better than you think - stays true to his TED talk persona. He is a medical doctor who brilliantly uses statistics and visuals to show us how most of us are ignorant about the world, and how things are a lot better than we think and improving even faster.

However, the book format allows him to move way beyond this and Factfulness is by far the best book about developing sound real-world thinking and practical judgment that I have ever read. It ranks way up there on this hard-to-teach topic alongside studying the lives and words of people like Lee Kuan Yew, Charlie Munger and Charles Darwin.

The book entertainingly spans evidence-based reasoning, statistical thinking (as opposed to its more common cousin - anecdotal outrage), psychological cognitive biases, self-awareness, looking through media biases (usually towards sensationalist, fear-mongering bad news) and thinking through effective, actionable solutions to material real-world problems including non-intuitive, indirect ones. Rosling is unusual in his ability to abstract out a range of conceptual tools that we can use across situations, while using examples from his experience to keep such concepts relatable and grounded.

Rosling's day job was as a medical doctor specialising in controlling epidemics around the world. He has witnessed gut-wrenching tragedy first-hand. However, rather than despair or be guided by emotions, he objectively looks for the most effective solutions that can help do most good even if it worsens the situation immediately confronting him. As an illustration, the most effective tool to limit high population growth in poor countries isn't family planning propaganda but better sanitation (infant mortality is disproportionately caused by contamination of water with sewage and reducing this automatically causes parents to try for fewer children). This then has spillover benefits for family health, women's empowerment and fewer children getting more attention and resources, making it far more likely that the family will escape from abject poverty over a generation.

Rosling is a nuanced thinker, able to convey seemingly contradictory thoughts in a way that allows the reader to navigate a grey, messy world rather than a neat, binary one popularised by academics and journalists. As an illustration, he paints a nuanced picture of how things can be both bad and better at the same time. Often, activists are so outraged by things being bad (all we have to do in a place like India is to look around) that they deny any notion that things are actually getting better in many ways. In reality, acknowledging, appreciating and understanding how things are getting better is the way to fix what is still clearly bad.

This is the kind of book that all of us should read, as a great starting point towards being lesser idiots in whatever we have set out to do.

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Mrs Armtrough

Enlightening and essential reading

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 July 2018

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Like many people I have lived my whole life feeling guilty and deeply depressed about the terrible state of the world -so much so that I have often felt like there was no point in doing anything about it. This book changes everything because it puts all that bad news (which we are constantly inundated with) into fact-based context. The data that is presented in this fascinating and entertaining book challenges just about everything I believed about the world we live in without in any way minimising the changes that still need to be made. This makes me feel not only more positive and hopeful about state of humanity but also that it is worth me making an effort to contribute to the incredible improvements that are taking place daily on the planet, world wide - and that my participation could actually make a difference.
Truly inspirational and life affirming - read it now!

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Karl Strobl

An absolute must-read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 August 2018

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This is the book Hans Rosling decided to write when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and after cancelling all further speaking engagements. It's his testament to how the world has measurably improved on so many levels people are strangely unaware of, and what's left to be done. It's a tribute to calm rationality and full of extremely interesting and very personal stories to boot. What an interesting and rich life. What a marvellous book summing it all up. Truly one of the best reads for me in a long time

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Andrew Sillis

The book that will make you cleverer than a chimpanzee (and tell you why you're currently less informed than one)

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 July 2018

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This fascinating book has changed the way I evaluate all kinds of stuff I see on the TV or read about in the papers.
If you've ever felt that you're being spun by a politician or a journalist, this easy-to-read book will set you straight.
The entire world will appear different after reading this - big claim I know, but before reading Hans Rosling my global view was more confused than that of a troop of chimpanzees.

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Amazon Customer

Narcissistic and tedious.

Reviewed in the United States on 5 November 2018

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Listen to his TED talk and save yourself the cost of this book and the environment the cost of the tree used to make it and the fossil fuel used to send it to you. The author is a complete narcissist and insulting in his tone. Every few pages has a paragraph that begins something along the lines of “Not long ago I was invited to the five-star Balmoral Hotel in Edinborough to present to a gathering of capital managers and their wealthiest clients”, or “At the end of my opening lecture in my 1998 course in global health...”, or “I was lecturing at Karolinska Institutet...”, or “There I had spent two days using my hands to diagnose hundreds of patients with a terrible, un-explained disease [MUST HAVE BEEN A VERY BUSY TWO DAYS!]...”, or “The first time I lectured to the staff of the world bank, I told them [AND IF I’M LECTURING THE WORLD BANK, THEN I MUST BE REALLY SMART AND HAVE REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF TO SAY!]...”
After reading this tedious book that could be summarized in a couple of charts, or 17” TED talk, I think if I were seated next to Hans Rosling on an airplane [FIRST CLASS, OF COURSE!], I’d be searching for an empty seat in tourist class, next to the bathrooms. Or a parachute. Or maybe just jump.

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Head Coach

Factfulness should be essential reading for everyone!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 September 2018

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This book very easy to read and is enormously encouraging. It helps us put the word today into a true perspective. On the other hand, it's a very challenging read because it forces us to change our view that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. It does this by using plain unarguable facts rather than the nonsense served up by politicians and the media.
What's more, the facts in this book should be on every school curriculum so that the next generation is not as misled as the current one is!

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RoastedCashews

How to lie with statistics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 June 2019

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A perfect demonstration of how to lie with statistics.
It is dangerous to put a book out there with dubious statistics, deceiving people who cannot see through the figures. It is avoiding actual figures regarding global warming, quality of life and biodiversity.

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davidmel

Brilliant research and writing!!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 July 2018

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Brilliant. Highly recommended and inspiring. I was so sad to find out that the main author of this novel had died. His ideas, his realism, his search for solutions to major problems and determination to show the world how we are progressing, without minimising or marginalising any problems that that do exist will surely live on for a long, long time beyond his death. I highly recommend this book and any of the associated talks on these matters.

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Jan A. Sigvartsen

I was disappointed by this book, as it is very misleading.

Reviewed in Germany on 31 March 2019

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It seems this author defines poverty at earning less than $32 a day - which is a fortune in some countries, and a pittance in others - particularly in highly developed, industrialized countries. The income matrix at the back of the book is extremely incorrect, as my own professional experience in working with people living in poverty in Australia, and then the USA, is people earning $50 a day certainly do not own a car! The author's four income levels are extremely ill-informed and very misleading. He definitely needs more income levels rather than putting people who earn a mere $40 a day in the USA into the same group as Billionaires - no wonder he arrived at the rosy conclusions that he did.

It seems to play into the rhetoric that the "poor" in highly developed, industrialized counties (those who earn slightly more than $32 a day), shouldn't complain, even though they cannot afford to live in the counties they were born in and their own countries define them as living below the poverty line.

This misleading definition seems to perpetuate the very serious issue of distain for the poor in wealthy countries too or the erroneous belief that they don't want to work or are lazy (you can work full-time in the USA and still only earn $300 a week - not enough to cover even the most basic of costs). His very limited and agenda driven income levels does little to improve their prospects of earning a living wage too. This flawed assertion alone, calls into question all of the commentary by the author - which given his nationality and credentials, is certainly earning far and above the poverty line in his country and seems oblivious to the very real poverty issues (and their associated social costs) in highly developed, industrialized countries outside of Scandinavia (where there are socialized safety nets for the poor - other wealthy counties are not so lucky).

I had hoped this book would provide facts, but it seems it is just presenting a flawed belief system that continues to ignore a large group of already frustrated people - people who are now embracing nationalistic ideologies that may result in damaging the precarious peaceful picture this book is trying to present.

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Ath

There is a reason that Bill Gates is giving this ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 June 2018

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There is a reason that Bill Gates is giving this book away. Gates does not want to change the world, instead, Gates is helping to change the people's (clouded) mind with Hans Rosling (who practised factfulness throughout his life and work).

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Rusty

13 Reasons To Be Cheefrful

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 June 2018

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Yet more reasons to be cheerful. Rosling does not downplay the negative aspects of life today but he does state in plain data driven language just how much the world (all of it, not just Europe and North America) has improved over the last 50/100/200 years. It reinforces the themes so well put in Stephen Pinkers "Better Angels Of Our Nature" but in a much lighter way. An informative, sometimes humerous and always light look at why we should all cheer up.

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papapownall

Essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the World

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2019

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This is an astonishing book. Many people believe that they have a good grasp of the World. This is usually gleaned through the classroom (when they were a child) and the media (which is inherently sensationalist). Very few actually understand as much as they think and this is the premise of this book by Hans Rosling et al. It starts with a simple quiz with 13 questions with 3 multiple choice answers to each; a chimpanzee randomly selecting the answers would of course score around 33% correct all things being equal. Most people score worse than chimpanzees and this is a deep concern to the authors. Reading this book gives the answers and explains why our perceptions of the world are, in many instances, fundamentally wrong. The facts used are backed up with research that is cited at the end of the book too. I found this to be an astonishing read and it has encouraged me to explore more of the authors' work on gapminder.org and the dollar street tool and also seek out YouTube videos of the authors' Ted Talks. If anyone wishes they were better informed, this is the place to start.

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Brian Clegg

Should be compulsory reading for politicians, administrators and more

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 November 2018

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Without doubt a remarkable book. Hans Rosling (who died towards the end of writing Factfulness), aided by his son and daughter-in-law, tells the remarkable story of the gap between our appreciation of the state of the world and the reality.

Rosling, a doctor originally, illustrates some of the points he makes with personal experience, particularly examples where an incorrect assumption about facts he has made has led to potentially disastrous circumstances. But the core of the book makes use of a series of 12 multiple choice questions on the state of the world which, on the whole, we answer worse that choosing randomly - because almost universally we think the world is far worse than it really is.

Although Rosling claims not to be an optimist, making it clear that he isn't saying everything is rosy - there's still a lot to improve - the fact is that most of our ideas of, for example, how bad world poverty is, education of girls, size of families and far more reflects what the world was like 50 years or more ago - where in practice it is now much better.

One essential point that Rosling makes is that our division of the world into developing and developed gives a hugely misleading picture - because in reality (like most distributions) the majority of countries aren't in the very worst or very best part of the distribution, but somewhere in the middle. He advocates moving from the either/or split of developed/developing to four levels, based on average earnings, which gives a much better picture of the reality. Apparently the World Bank has adopted this approach but the UN and others still haven't got the message.

In Factfulness, Rosling looks at a set of ways we have a biased view of reality and what we can do to modify this. So, for example, he talks about our urge to divide populations into two ('the gap instinct') - rich or poor, privileged or not etc, etc. - where the reality is almost always a continuum with no gap. Elsewhere he takes on our tendency to extrapolate into the future with a straight line, where many trends are, for example S-shaped, the danger of always looking for someone to blame and much more.

This is a very powerful piece of work that should be required reading for any politician, businessperson, educator and administrator. The whole thing is presented in a light, approachable fashion with lots of graphs and bubble charts. It's an easy read practically speaking, but a difficult one in the sense that the reader is encouraged to face their own misconceptions (and we almost all will have them - I certainly did).

It's a shame there isn't a bit more on implications. For example, how we target aid would perhaps change if we took note (in the UK, for example, our biggest aid recipient is not a Level 1 country). I also occasionally felt that (for all the right reasons) the wording of the questions used to evaluate our views was a little manipulative to get the required results. And although Rosling warns of the danger of lone numbers without context, he has a tendency to use percentages without context - which is also potentially highly misleading. (For example, if violent crime rises 100% in a year it's terrifying. But if you know there was 1 incident the previous year and 2 this year, it's not so dramartic.)

Just one example of the slightly weighted questions: one reads 'In all low-income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school?' The options are 20, 40 or 60 percent. Rosling's 'right' answer is 60 percent, then later he tells us 'there are only a very few countries in the world' where fewer than 20 percent of girls finish primary school. The trouble is, that word 'all' in the question. I'd argue the logical answer is 20, because that's the only number that applies to all countries - if larger numbers complete primary school, then 20 percent certainly do. It can't be true that 60 percent finish in all countries if under 20 percent do so in some.

These are, however, minor concerns - Rosling and his associates have a powerful message that needs shouting from the rooftops.

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