Hans Rosling believed that the fast path to equality is a fact-based worldview. In his book Factfulness, there are 13 simple questions to test your knowledge about the world.
Surprisingly, the average score was 16%. Even the world’s leading scholars had trouble choosing the right answers.
Here are two of those questions:
1. How has the proportion of extreme poverty in the world's population changed over the past two decades? □ A: Almost doubled. □ B: About the same. □ C: Almost halved. 2. How has the annual number of deaths from natural disasters changed over the past 100 years? □ A: More than doubled. □ B: Almost the same. □ C: Reduced to less than half. (You can find answers are at the end of this blog. Source: Factfulness)
The percentage of correct answers for these questions was 5% and 9%, respectively. The authors of these questions often point out that people score worse than chimpanzees, who would choose answers at random and score 33%.
Author of Factfulness
These questions were not designed to determine how much basic common-sense knowledge people have. Rather, the questions were posed to demonstrate the ten instincts that distort our perspective.
The book Factfulness raises a question to the readers:
“How true are you to the facts?”
Bias comes from misinformation. Hans Rosling, the author of this book, says that with a worldview based on facts, we can move away from prejudiced thinking and will be empowered to opportunities of the future.
Let’s take a look at his personal life and career to find out why he The reason why Hans shouted and announced the facts so ardently! We want to find out some hints from his life story.
Hans Rosling learns the importance of accurate diagnosis
Hans worked at a hospital in Nacala, Mozambique for two years, starting in 1979. He was the only doctor in town with roads full of bicycles and pedestrians.
Most patients visited the hospital only when there was an emergency, usually because of late treatment of a disease. He wanted to find a way to help save his patients, and he realized that more children died without ever visiting the hospital than dying in the hospital.
For an accurate diagnosis, it was necessary to accurately understand the condition of the patient. Right away, he conducted interviews with 7 nurses in the village of Nacala, where 3,700 people lived.
The results were worse than Hans had expected. If there were 52 children dying in the hospital in a year, the number of children dying in the village was 672, and the mortality rate for children under 5 was 26%. The total number of deaths of children under the age of 5 in Nacala City was 3,000. What was all the more shocking was that half of them never visited the hospital.
These facts made his mission clear. He would spend more time saving the 3,000 children dying at home each year in Nacala City than concentrating on the 52 children who die in the hospital.
Hans first set up local treatment centers in each area. The local clinic managed the health of the children and quickly identified and treated the symptoms of some diseases. Children in the high-risk group were immediately taken to the hospital for intensive care. As a result, in 2014, 35 years after launching the local health system, the death rate fell significantly by 8%.
Hans Rosling introduces fact-based worldview
The two years in Mozambique passed quickly. After returning home, Hans devoted himself to research and teaching. Notably, he opened a lecture series titled “Health Care in Underdeveloped Countries” to educate students on the needs and methodology of healthcare systems.
But as he conducted the class, he realized a surprising fact. The Swedish elite who attended his classes had a very distorted view of the world.
“They (the rest of the people) don’t want to be wealthy like us”
“They (the rest of society) can’t be like us, no matter how much they strive to better themselves”
The students were not bad people or pursue inequality. However, the outdated data from the 1960s was in their minds for several decades. What these elites needed was a worldview based on facts.
In order to break these misconceptions, Hans presented to them the child fertility rate, child mortality rate, vaccination rate, birth rate, etc. gathered by the UN.
(Left: Under 5-year-old child mortality rate/fertility rate, 1960; Right: Under 5-year-old child mortality rate/fertility rate, 2017)
First, when he displayed the chart for 1960 with the year hidden, they exclaimed, “Well, look at that!” and “It’s an appalling difference!”
But when they saw the complete chart, the students were stunned. Recent statistics on fertility rates and longevity show that most developing countries are on the same level as the developed countries. Students who took the class ceased to see the Third World as a mere object of relief and compassion.
Hans Rosling’s fact-based worldview
Hans focused on the facts because he knew that only an accurate GPS can guide the driver to the optimal route. Just like the Mozambique experience, knowing your current state can help you achieve your goals quickly and effectively. He wanted students, health officials, entrepreneurs, public service workers, and global leaders, to know this.
His wish led to the creation of the animated bubble chart.
The graph helped people grasp the concept by visually tracking the trend year by year. The synergy of a new concept and technology made his lectures very popular.
Behind Hans’ fame were the efforts of Olla and Anna.
Hans started the Gapminder foundation with Anna, devoting himself to further research. With the development of accuracy, depth, resolution, extent, and detail of his research, not only Swedish students, but also the World Health Organization, TED, Davos Forum, and other well-known institutions and companies requested lectures from him.
After listening to Hans’ lecture, Larry Page, the founder of Google, came up to him and asked,
“How about collaborating with Google?”
The Google public data explorer program thus created was provided free of charge by Google. This meant that the fact-based worldview that Hans wanted to promote was on Google, the world’s largest search engine.
After that, Hans took on the final challenge. He was determined to explain the reason for the distorted worldview so that people would not fall into prejudice and delusion. The global bestseller, Factfulness, was thus born.
Hans Rosling wished people to be equal and progress free of misunderstanding and prejudice. We hope that his efforts for a genuine future generation will be remembered.
Click here to read the article in the Korean language
평등을 향한 가장 빠른 길을 개척하다, 팩트풀.. : 네이버블로그 (naver.com)
(Answers to questions #1 and #2 are both C!)
