{"id":32582,"date":"2023-04-25T16:51:56","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T23:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=32582"},"modified":"2023-04-25T16:51:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T23:51:56","slug":"a-more-positive-view","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/a-more-positive-view\/","title":{"rendered":"A More Positive View"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am one of those people who can be inspired merely by the statistics. Which is the point that Hans Rolling is making with his seminal book, Factfulness<\/i>[1]. <\/i>It is a book all about challenging how we view the world through faulty perceptions that lead to wrong, pessimistic conclusions about the state we are in on this planet. Rosling weaves stories of TED talk presentations and classrooms discussions with colorful charts that challenge the assumptions that most of us have. It is not an overstatement to say most of us, as Rosling famously observes that even a chimpanzee can score higher on his world quiz[2]. He observes that \u201cEvery group of people I ask thinks the world is more frightening, more violent, and more hopeless – in short, more dramatic – than it really is\u201d[3].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Worldview<\/b><\/p>\n

Rosling is passionate about changing the thinking of everyone, he states this is the reason he wrote the book. His very purpose is, \u201c\u2026to change people\u2019s ways of thinking, calm their irrational fears, and redirect their energies into constructive activities.\u201d It our thinking that he wants to challenge. While, hopefully not using the Gap Instinct[5], Rosling divides people into two main ways of thinking: overdramatic and fact-based worldview[6]. Overdramatic Worldview thinkers see the world through a negative lens of violence, disasters, and corruption. While those with a fact-based worldview look at the data available and refresh their worldview based on the conclusions that can be drawn by readily-available statistics. He then offers multiple instincts that can help us become more examined thinkers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Threshold Statistics<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the interesting statistics that Rosling uses to ground his conclusions is child mortality. Interestingly, the child mortality rate can be used to determine the progress of a society as an indicator of how a group of people treat the most vulnerable[7]. From this indicator, Rosling is about to drawn conclusions of how a society is progressing in the areas of health, poverty and population growth. Further, this statistic reveals that in women will have less babies and the survival rate is much higher in higher level societies[8]. This statistic is a threshold observation about societies and where they align based on Rosling\u2019s Level 1-4 poverty scale[9].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Destiny Instinct<\/b><\/p>\n

One of the many instincts that Rosling observes is the Destiny Instinct. Rosling describes this instinct as, \u201c\u2026the idea that innate characteristics determine the destinies of people, countries, religions, or cultures\u2026they have always been this way and will never change\u201d[10]. This caught my attention as it is often the adage lived by in religious cultures, which is exactly the examples that Rosling uses. The basis for his observations that things do change is the number of births per woman, which he concludes, \u201cThere is no major difference between the birth rates of the great world religions\u201d[10]. This determining factor in the number of children born is the economic status of the country in which the families reside[11]. While many might say \u201cnothing ever changes,\u201d it certainly does as the economic conditions improve.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n

Rosling\u2019s book is mind-opening. While I consider myself to be an optimistic person, I was confronted with every statistic, of how I lived with bias toward people of other countries and the economic conditions that many live within. As Rosling observes, \u201cAs long as people have a worldview that is so much more negative than reality, pure statistics can make them feel more positive\u201d[12]. Rosling weaves a convincing story from the data and one that I found very positive. While I know that numbers can reveal multiple angles to the same information, I welcome the positive perspective and hopefulness that makes this book one that needs to be considered.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200c1. Rosling, Hans, Rosling, Ola and R\u00f6nnlund, Anna Rosling, Factfulness: Ten Reasons We\u2019re Wrong about the World – and Why Things Are Better than You Think <\/i>(New York, New York: Flatiron Books, 2020).<\/p>\n

2. Ibid., 9.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Ibid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Ibid., 15.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Ibid., 38.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Ibid., 13.<\/p>\n

7. Ibid., 20.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

8. Ibid., 175.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

9. Ibid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

10. Ibid., 176.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

11. Ibid.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

12. Ibid., 51.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am one of those people who can be inspired merely by the statistics. Which is the point that Hans Rolling is making with his seminal book, Factfulness[1]. It is a book all about challenging how we view the world through faulty perceptions that lead to wrong, pessimistic conclusions about the state we are in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2727],"class_list":["post-32582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-rosling-dlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32582"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32583,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32582\/revisions\/32583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}