Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

by Hans Rosling

Beware of exceptional examples used to make a point about a whole group. Chemophobia, the fear of chemicals, is driven by generalizations from a few vivid but exceptional examples of harmful substances. Some people become frightened of all “chemicals.”

Here are some of my favorites that I would rather not live without: soap, cement, plastic, washing detergent, toilet paper, and antibiotics.

Factfulness is … recognizing when a category is being used in an explanation, and remembering that categories can be misleading. We can’t stop generalization and we shouldn’t even try. What we should try to do is to avoid generalizing incorrectly. To control the generalization instinct, question your categories. • Look for differences within groups. Especially when the groups are large, look for ways to split them into smaller, more precise categories. And … • Look for similarities across groups. If you find striking similarities between different groups, consider whether your categories are relevant. But also … • Look for differences across groups. Do not assume that what applies for one group (e.g., you and other people living on Level 4 or unconscious soldiers) applies for another (e.g., people not living on Level 4 or sleeping babies). • Beware of “the majority.” The majority just means more than half. Ask whether it means 51 percent, 99 percent, or something in between. • Beware of vivid examples. Vivid images are easier to recall but they might be the exception rather than the rule. • Assume people are not idiots. When something looks strange, be curious and humble, and think, In what way is this a smart solution?

this instinct to see things as unchanging, this instinct not to update our knowledge, blinds us to the revolutionary transformations in societies happening all around us.

Another is that the “Islamic world” is fundamentally different from the “Christian world.” This or that religion or continent or culture or nation will (or must) never change, because of its traditional and unchanging “values”: again and again, it’s the same idea in different costumes. At first sight there appears to be some analysis going on. On closer inspection, our instincts have often fooled us. These lofty statements are often simply feelings disguised as facts.

The idea that Africa is destined to remain poor is very common but often seems to be based on no more than a feeling. If you like your opinions to be based on facts, this is what you need to know. Yes, Africa is lagging behind other continents, on average. The average lifespan of a newborn baby in Africa today is 65 years. That’s a staggering 17 years less than a baby born today in Western Europe.

But, first of all, you know how misleading averages can be, and the differences within Africa are immense. Not all African countries are lagging the world. Five large African countries—Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya, and Egypt—have life expectancies above the world average of 72 years. They are where Sweden was in 1970.

In the last 60 years the African countries south of the Sahara almost all went from being colonies to being independent states. Over that time, these countries expanded their education, electricity, water, and sanitation infrastructures at the same steady speed as that achieved by the countries of Europe when they went through their own miracles. And each of the 50 countries south of the Sahara reduced its child mortality faster than Sweden ever did. How can that not be counted as incredible progress?

Roughly half a billion people in Africa today are stuck in extreme poverty.

quite an achievement—actually the fastest drop ever, from more than six babies per woman in 1984 down to fewer than three babies per woman just 15 years later.

the fast fall in the number of babies per woman in Iran is a reflection of improvements in health and education, especially for Iranian women.

How many people in the West would guess that women in Iran today decide to have fewer babies than women in either the United States or Sweden? Do we Westerners love free speech so much that it makes us blind to any progress in a country whose regime does not share our love?

the link between religion and the number of babies per woman is often overstated. There is, though, a strong link between income and number of babies per woman.

Today, Muslim women have on average 3.1 children. Christian women have 2.7. There is no major difference between the birth rates of the great world religions.

A woman’s right to an abortion is supported by just about everyone in Sweden today.

of our culture. My students’ jaws drop when I tell them how different things were when I was a student in the 1960s. Abortion in Sweden was still, except on very limited grounds, illegal. At the university, we ran a secret fund to pay for women to travel abroad to get safe abortions. Jaws drop even further when I tell the students where these young pregnant students traveled to: Poland. Catholic Poland. Five years later, Poland banned abortion and Sweden legalized it. The flow of young women started to go the other way. The point is, it was not always so. The cultures changed.

in South Korea and Japan, many wives are still expected to take care of their husband’s parents, as well as taking full responsibility for the care of any children. I have encountered many men who are proud of these “Asian values,” as they call them.

The macho values that are found today in many Asian and African countries, these are not Asian values, or African values. They are not Muslim values. They are not Eastern values. They are patriarchal values like those found in Sweden only 60 years ago, and with social and economic progress they will vanish, just as they did in Sweden. They are not unchangeable.

How can we help our brains to see that rocks move; that the way things are now is neither how they have always been nor how they are always meant to be?

By the year 1900, 0.03 percent of the Earth’s land surface was protected. By 1930 it was 0.2 percent. Slowly, slowly, decade by decade, one forest at a time, the number climbed. The annual increase was absolutely tiny, almost imperceptible. Today a stunning 15 percent of the Earth’s surface is protected, and the number is still climbing.

Some Americans think of Sweden as a socialist country, but values can change. A few decades ago Sweden carried out what might be the most drastic deregulation ever of a public school system and now allows fully commercial schools to compete and make profits (a brave capitalist experiment).

Factfulness is … recognizing that many things (including people, countries, religions, and cultures) appear to be constant just because the change is happening slowly, and remembering that even small, slow changes gradually add up to big changes. To control the destiny instinct, remember slow change is still change.

Keep track of gradual improvements.

Update your knowledge. Some knowledge goes out of date quickly. Technology, countries, societies, cultures, and religions are constantly changing. • Talk to Grandpa. If you want to be reminded of how values have changed, think about your grandparents’ values and how they differ from yours. • Collect examples of cultural change. Challenge the idea that today’s culture must also have been yesterday’s, and will also be tomorrow’s.

the single perspective instinct.

For example, the simple and beautiful idea of the free market can lead to the simplistic idea that all problems have a single cause—government interference—which we must always oppose; and that the solution to all problems is to liberate market forces by reducing taxes and removing regulations, which we must always support.

Alternatively, the simple and beautiful idea of equality can lead to the simplistic idea that all problems are caused by inequality, which we should always oppose; and that the solution to all problems is redi...

Almost every activist I have ever met, whether deliberately or, more likely, unknowingly, exaggerates the problem to which they have dedicated themselves.

I am a huge, huge fan of data, but I don’t love it. It has its limits. I love data only when it helps me to understand the reality behind the numbers, i.e., people’s lives.

The prime minister of Mozambique from 1994 to 2004, Pascoal Mocumbi, visited Stockholm in 2002 and told me that his country was making great economic progress. I asked him how he knew; after all, the quality of the economic statistics in Mozambique was probably not very good. Had he looked at GDP per capita? “I do look at those figures,” he said. “but they are not so accurate. So I have also made it a habit to watch the marches on May first every year. They are a popular tradition in our country. And I look at people’s feet, and what kind of shoes they have. I know that people do their best to look good on that day. I know that they cannot borrow their friend’s shoes, because their friend will be out marching too. So I look. And I can see if they walk barefoot, or if they have bad shoes, or if they have good shoes. And I can compare what I see with what I saw last year.

“Also, when I travel across the country, I look at the construction going on. If the grass is growing over new foundations, that is bad. But if they keep putting new bricks on, then I know people have money to invest, not just to consume day to day.” A wise prime minister looks at the numbers, but not only at the numbers.

The world cannot be understood without numbers. But the world cannot be understood with numbers alone.

Medical professionals can become very single-minded about medicine, or even a particular kind of medicine. In the 1950s, a Danish public health doctor, Halfdan Mahler, suggested to the World Health Organization a way to eradicate tuberculosis. His project sent small buses with X-ray machines trundling around villages in India. It was a simple idea: eradicate one disease, and it’s gone. The plan was to X-ray the whole population, find those with TB, and treat them. But it failed because the people got angry. They all had tons of urgent health problems, and finally here was a bus with nurses and doctors. But instead of fixing a broken bone, or giving fluids for diarrhea, or helping a woman in childbirth, they wanted to X-ray everyone for a disease they had never heard of. Out of the failure of this attempt to eradicate one single disease came the insight that, instead of fighting this disease or that disease, it is wiser to provide and gradually improve primary health care for all.

Big Pharma companies have been dropping. Most of them are fixated on developing a new, revolutionary, life-prolonging medicine. I try to persuade them that the next big boost in world life expectancy (and their profits) will probably come not from a pharmacological breakthrough but from a business model breakthrough. Big Pharma is currently failing to reach huge markets in countries on Levels 2 and 3, where hundreds of millions of people, like the diabetes patient we met in Kerala, need drugs that have already been discovered, but at more reasonable prices. If the pharmaceutical companies were better at adjusting their prices for different countries and different customers, they could make their next fortune with what they already have.

ideologues can become just as fixated as experts and activists on their one idea or one solution, with even more harmful outcomes.

The absurd consequences of focusing fanatically on a single idea, like free markets or equality,

I showed them Cuba’s special position on my health and wealth bubble chart.

He looked at me as if it were a quiz, then answered his own question. “We are not the healthiest of the poor, we are the poorest of the healthy.”

The United States spends more than twice as much per capita on health care as other capitalist countries on Level 4—around $9,400 compared to around $3,600—and for that money its citizens can expect lives that are three years shorter.

Instead of comparing themselves with extreme socialist regimes, US citizens should be asking why they cannot achieve the same levels of health, for the same cost, as other capitalist countries that have similar resources. The answer is not difficult, by the way: it is the absence of the basic public health insurance that citizens of most other countries on Level 4 take for granted.

Under the current US system, rich, insured patients visit doctors more than they need, running up costs, while poor patients cannot afford even simple, inexpensive treatments and die younger than they should.

The communist system in Cuba is an example of the danger of getting hooked on a single perspective: the seemingly reasonable but actually bizarre idea that a central government can solve all its people’s problems. I can understand why people looking at Cuba and its inefficiencies, poverty, and lack of freedom would decide that governments should never be allowed to plan societies.

The health-care system in the United States is also suffering from the single-perspective mind-set: the seemingly reasonable but actually bizarre idea that the market can solve all a nation’s problems. I can understand why people looking at the United States and its inequalities and health-care outcomes would decide that private markets and competition should never be allowed anywhere near the delivery of public goods.

As with most discussions about the private versus the public sector, the answer is not either/or. It is case-by-case, and it is both. The challenge is to find the ...

I strongly believe that liberal democracy is the best way to run a country. People like me, who believe this, are often tempted to argue that democracy leads to, or is even a requirement for, other good things, like peace, social progress, health improvements, and economic growth. But here’s the thing, and it is hard to accept: the evidence does not support this stance.

Most countries that make great economic and social progress are not democracies.

Test your ideas. Don’t only collect examples that show how excellent your favorite ideas are. Have people who disagree with you test your ideas and find their weaknesses. • Limited expertise. Don’t claim expertise beyond your field: be humble about what you don’t know. Be aware too of the limits of the expertise of others. • Hammers and nails. If you are good with a tool, you may want to use it too often. If you have analyzed a problem in depth, you can end up exaggerating the importance of that problem or of your solution. Remember that no one tool is good for everything. If your favorite idea is a hammer, look for colleagues with screwdrivers, wrenches, and tape measures. Be open to ideas from other fields. • Numbers, but not only numbers. The world cannot be understood without numbers, and it cannot be understood with numbers alone. Love numbers for what they tell you about real lives. • Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions. Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise. Solve problems on a case-by-case basis.

It seems that it comes very naturally for us to decide that when things go wrong, it must be because of some bad individual with bad intentions. We like to believe that things happen because someone wanted them to, that individuals have power and agency: otherwise, the world feels unpredictable, confusing, and frightening. The blame instinct

This instinct to find a guilty party derails our ability to develop a true, fact-based understanding of the world: 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, because we are stuck with oversimplistic finger pointing, which distracts us from the more complex truth and pre...