Factfulness

If I was teaching a class on quantitative reasoning, I’d encourage, maybe even require, my students to read Factfulness. Hans Rosling, a medical doctor with significant experience in public health internationally, weaves in personal anecdotes with stark statistics, and employs a direct yet conversational tone in his book (in collaboration with his son and daughter-in-law). The book is subtitled “Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things are Better Than You Think”. There’s even a nifty graphic with key phrases to remind you of his main points – they make sense after you’ve read the book.

Each and every one of Rosling’s ten takeaways is important. I already discuss #3 (the Straight Line Instinct) in my classes when we’re analyzing data and trying to reach some sort of tentative conclusion or make a prediction. His approach of dividing up different socio-economic conditions into four broad levels, using a GDP per capita income that doubles in each advancing level, is genius both as a rule-of-thumb and also as something that’s easy and clear to communicate. Layering this with population numbers by country and region in color-coded ‘bubble’ charts allows you to see broad trends without losing granularity. I recommend visiting the Gapminder website to explore the data.

Today’s post will highlight two of the ten that jumped out at me.

In the Fear Instinct (#4), there is an eye-opening section on terrorism. Rosling writes: “If there’s one group of people who have fully understood the power of the fear instinct, it’s not journalists. It’s terrorists. The clue is in their name. Fear is what they aim for. … Terrorism is one of the exceptions to the global trends discussed in chapter 2 on negativity. It is getting worse. So are you right to be very scared of it? Well, first of all it accounted for 0.05 percent of all deaths in the world in 2016, so probably not. Second, it depends where you live.”

And now you really want to know what he’s going to say next. I recommend reading the book in full. The data is eye-popping and not what I expected given mass media coverage and the proclamations of populist politicians. Interestingly, Rosling doesn’t lay the blame of the fear instinct at the feet of the media – he recognizes why some things are story-worthy from that perspective, others less so, even if he disagrees with the priorities of mass media. He acknowledges the fact and moves on to practically how you or I should deal with hearing such things day in, day out. He also carefully distinguishes fear and danger. “Fear can be useful, but only if it is directed at the right things. The fear instinct is a terrible guide for understanding the world. It makes us give our attention to the unlikely dangers that we are most afraid of, and neglect what is actually most risky… Something frightening poses a perceived risk. Something dangerous poses a real risk.” System 1 takes over when our adrenaline is pumping and drowns out System 2.

The Blame Instinct (#9), according to Rosling, is “the instinct to find a clear, simple reason why something bad has happened.” Sounds like the scientific method to me. Students like things to be clean and simple, and get frustrated when the actual ‘answer’ turns out to be more complicated, convoluted and conditional. “We like to believe that [bad] things happen because someone [with bad intentions] wanted them to… [it] makes us exaggerate the importance of individuals or of particular groups… it steals our focus as we obsess about someone to blame, then blocks our learning because once we have decided who to punch in the face we stop looking for explanations elsewhere. This undermines our ability to solve the problem, or prevent it from happening again…” Did you enjoy Rosling’s to-the-point prose? Maybe it’s the Swede in him. I’ve now made a blanket attribution of his writing style to his nationality. Maybe that’s my Generalization Instinct (#6) kicking in.

I have to agree with Rosling when he writes: “The same instinct is triggered when things go well. ‘Claim’ comes just as easily as ‘blame.’ When something goes well, we are very quick to give the credit to an individual or a simple cause, when again it is usually more complicated.” One very sad example that Rosling provides is the many deaths from “rickety rubber rafts” carrying refugees across the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe. Why aren’t they traveling on proper ferries or on planes or overland? The first few reasons I could think of (before reading the book) aren’t the primary problem, and things turn out to be more complicated. Rosling tries to get at the heart of systems-thinking, and how interlocking parts make a bunch of issues cascade non-independently. It’s a tangled mess. Rosling’s advice: (1) “Look for causes, not villains.” (2) “Look for systems, not heroes.”

Overall, of the many books I’ve read, Factfulness feels like it has made an immediate impact in how I think – at least for now while it’s fresh in my memory. Over time, I might revert back to a lazier more instinctual mode that has habitually built up over time. That’s why this is a book worth keeping and revisiting every so often. Overcoming those instincts is challenging. Rosling recognizes this and tries in his small way to help. I highly recommend his book.