The subtitle tells you what this book is about: 'Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World - and Why Things Are Better Than You Think'.
Its initial quiz makes its point effectively - most people are systematically and significantly wrong in their understanding of the overall state of the world as measured by facts like the percentage of girls finishing primary school in low-income countries, the trend in numbers of people living in extreme poverty, global life expectancy, and infant vaccination rates. I got 5 out of the 12 questions right - excluding the global warming one. Each question had three options, meaning I barely beat what Rosling calls the chimpanzees, ie what would be expected if someone randomly guessed the answers; Rosling's point is that most people, including (and maybe especially) those who are highly educated actually do worse than the chimpanzees due to those systematic biases.
There's plenty in Factfulness that I agree with - for clear and critical thinking, the list of 'dramatic' instincts which organise the book (the gap instinct, the fear instinct, the destiny instinct, the blame instinct, etc) are useful, in many cases combining cognitive biases of the kind laid out by Kahneman, Ariely et al with reminders about the way statistics can mislead if not used properly. And there's no arguing with Rosling's central call for us to know and understand the facts about our world, including being aware of the ways in which we're making progress.
I have one disagreement with the book's premises, and it's a big one. I think the book assumes that facts about things like educational attainment, immunisation rates, etc are an accurate indicator of global wellbeing, ie if those data points are going in the right direction, then the world is getting better. And of course these kinds of statistics are an important part of the story here.
But his argument doesn't reckon with two important and related things: the fact (of a different kind) that the price of these improvements has been immense consumption of natural resources since industrialisation and, at the same time, catastrophic climate change, and the (more contestable but I think true) point that the post-industrial scientific and technological boom has probably made the world a net more unequal place, with the gains from scientific progress unequally shared and especially once you factor in the disproportionate costs of climate change being borne by basically the whole world that doesn't fall within Rosling’s very wealthy 'level 4' group of countries.
Put those things together, and especially the point about environmental resource consumption and degradation, and it starts to look like Rosling might - ironically - have fallen victim to his own 'straight line' instinct in assuming that past progress on material needs will be sustainable without a different (and more equitable) way of doing things.
This also made me think of the Pinker/Ridley/de Botton/Gladwell debate about whether humankind's best days lie ahead.
Its initial quiz makes its point effectively - most people are systematically and significantly wrong in their understanding of the overall state of the world as measured by facts like the percentage of girls finishing primary school in low-income countries, the trend in numbers of people living in extreme poverty, global life expectancy, and infant vaccination rates. I got 5 out of the 12 questions right - excluding the global warming one. Each question had three options, meaning I barely beat what Rosling calls the chimpanzees, ie what would be expected if someone randomly guessed the answers; Rosling's point is that most people, including (and maybe especially) those who are highly educated actually do worse than the chimpanzees due to those systematic biases.
There's plenty in Factfulness that I agree with - for clear and critical thinking, the list of 'dramatic' instincts which organise the book (the gap instinct, the fear instinct, the destiny instinct, the blame instinct, etc) are useful, in many cases combining cognitive biases of the kind laid out by Kahneman, Ariely et al with reminders about the way statistics can mislead if not used properly. And there's no arguing with Rosling's central call for us to know and understand the facts about our world, including being aware of the ways in which we're making progress.
I have one disagreement with the book's premises, and it's a big one. I think the book assumes that facts about things like educational attainment, immunisation rates, etc are an accurate indicator of global wellbeing, ie if those data points are going in the right direction, then the world is getting better. And of course these kinds of statistics are an important part of the story here.
But his argument doesn't reckon with two important and related things: the fact (of a different kind) that the price of these improvements has been immense consumption of natural resources since industrialisation and, at the same time, catastrophic climate change, and the (more contestable but I think true) point that the post-industrial scientific and technological boom has probably made the world a net more unequal place, with the gains from scientific progress unequally shared and especially once you factor in the disproportionate costs of climate change being borne by basically the whole world that doesn't fall within Rosling’s very wealthy 'level 4' group of countries.
Put those things together, and especially the point about environmental resource consumption and degradation, and it starts to look like Rosling might - ironically - have fallen victim to his own 'straight line' instinct in assuming that past progress on material needs will be sustainable without a different (and more equitable) way of doing things.
This also made me think of the Pinker/Ridley/de Botton/Gladwell debate about whether humankind's best days lie ahead.
