Hans Rosling

I like to listen to podcasts. Specifically, in the past 3 days podcasts which I am subscribed to and listen to regularly have published 24 hours of listening material. Fortunately, I've perfected the art of listening at double speed to most of the them which does save a big bunch of time.

Today, I listened to a special edition of More or Less which is produced for Radio 4 and the BBC World Service by the BBC. I got into the program because I enjoy Maths and Radio 4 so it seemed like a perfect combination.

This week's episode was all about Hans Rosling, a Swedish statistician who died this week of pancreatic cancer. I'd never heard of Hans Rosling but I was intrigued to hear what Tim Hartford had to say about him.

If you have heard of Hans Rosling, I suspect it would because of this TED Talk which I've just watched (and you should take some time to watch just now).

I was impressed by something which he directly said:

It is not that I see it differently - it's that it is differently!

Hans Rosling

and by something which he indirectly said:

Will you carry on looking at the facts. Forming your world view and reporting on the state of the world based on facts. Not feelings. Not what you think is probably true. But what is demonstrated by the facts and the statistics before you.

Hans Rosling

In the "post-truth" world we're all living in, I think this is a supremely important call to arms. And definitely something I'll be thinking about going forwards.

You can listen to the episode here and I highly recommend that you do.

February 17th, 2017 by Dave Miscampbell