clear
Author's Note
preface

Chapter 1: The Gap Instinct

This is how it started
The huge misconception that 'the world is divided in two'
The first giant misunderstanding tracker
What's wrong with the pictures people have in their heads?
Catch the beast
Help! Many of them are gone.
So what should we call "them"? A four-step nomenclature.
Gap instinct
How to suppress the gap instinct?
Factual accuracy

Chapter 2: The Negative Instinct

Get out of the sewer
The huge misconception that 'the world is getting worse'
Statistics as Healing
Negative instinct
How to suppress the negative instinct?
I want to thank society
Factual accuracy

Chapter 3: The Straight Line Instinct

The creepiest graph I've ever seen
The huge misconception that the world population is 'only' growing and growing
straight line instinct
Population curve shape
Wait, 'they' still have a lot of children
Why would the population decline if there are many survivors?
How to suppress your straight-line instinct? Not all lines are straight.
Which part of a curve do you see?
Factual accuracy

Chapter 4: The Fear Instinct

Blood pooling on the floor
Attention filter
fear instinct
Natural Disasters: In These Times
40 million invisible planes
War and conflict
pollution
terrorism
Fear vs. Risk: Being Fearful of What's Actually Dangerous
Factual accuracy

Chapter 5 Size Instinct

Death invisible to my eyes
Size instinct
How to suppress the size instinct?
80/20 rule
Divide the numbers
Compare and share
Factual accuracy

Chapter 6: The Generalization Instinct

Dinner is ready
generalization instinct
The harsh reality
How to suppress the instinct to generalize?
Factual accuracy

Chapter 7: The Instinct of Fate

Passing through the eye of a needle
fate instinct
How do rocks move?
How to suppress the instinct of fate?
I have no vision
Factual accuracy

Chapter 8: The Single-Point Instinct

Who can you trust?
Single-perspective instinct
Professionals: Experts and Activists
ideology
Factual accuracy

Chapter 9: The Blame Instinct

You want to beat up grandma?
instinct to blame
blame game
A more likely suspect
Who is to blame?
Factual accuracy

Chapter 10: The Urgency Instinct

Roadblocks and mental barriers
Urgency instinct
Learn to suppress your sense of urgency.
Special price today!
Five global risks we should 'really' worry about
Factual accuracy

Chapter 11: Practicing Factual Fidelity

How did truthfulness save my life?
Practicing factual fidelity
Final request

Rules of thumb based on facts
Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Appendix_ How many points does my country have?
References
source

Humanity can progress when we overcome prejudice and uncover the truth.
Pay attention to the 'facts' that overcome vague fears!

“The most important book I’ve ever read!” _Bill Gates

Articles about Bill Gates and a book were published simultaneously in Korean and international media.
Since 2010, Bill Gates has been recommending books for college students every May or June, but this time, he went beyond just recommending books and personally purchased and gifted books to graduates from every university and graduate school in the United States.
The reason for the recommendation was that it was “the most important book I have ever read and a useful guide to clearly understanding the world.”
The book is Factfulness by world-renowned scholar Hans Rosling.
'Factfulness' means 'factual fidelity' and refers to the attitude and perspective of looking at and understanding the world based on facts.

The book captivated the world's intellectual community and became a hot topic as soon as it was published.
Former President Barack Obama recommended it as one of his five must-read books.
Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, praised the book, saying that it rationally explains how our cognitive processes can lead us astray through abundant data, and that just reading it will completely change our worldview.
Additionally, the Observer selected it as the best book of the century, and it was a bestseller in major media outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the Sunday Times, selling over one million copies in just six months after its publication.

In the post-truth era, where confirmation bias is on the rise worldwide, Factfulness is a masterpiece that reminds us of the importance of facts overcoming vague fears and prejudices.
It offers insights that bridge the gap between the world we think we know and the real world, and break down preconceptions, in areas such as poverty, education, environment, energy, and population.
Contrary to our prejudices, the world is progressing day by day, proving this point in detail with clear data and statistics faithful to the facts.
The reason Bill Gates gave this book to young people entering society is probably to instill a positive perspective that "the world is getting better," while also advising them to reflect on whether their beliefs are in line with the truth.
If you're interested in living righteously rather than remaining stuck in a well, if you're willing to change your worldview, if you're ready to think critically instead of reacting instinctively, then this book is a must-read.
It will also serve as an important milestone in the direction that Korean society will move forward.

“Why do humans understand the world less clearly than chimpanzees?”
Introducing "Factfulness," a powerful tool to combat the world's ignorance and prejudice.

Author Hans Rosling has a unique academic background as a physician, public health expert, and statistician.
This has become the basis for an objective statistical look at the situation faced by people all over the world.
He discovers one important fact in his research.
It's just that people don't know much about the world.
More seriously, there was a systematic misunderstanding of the reality of the world.
Dr. Rosling created the '13 Problems to Understand the World' to test people's knowledge of the world and had them solve them.
As a result, the average correct answer rate was only 16%.
This is much lower than the 33% rate when chimpanzees randomly select the correct answer.
What's even more surprising is that the smarter and wiser a person is, the less he or she knows the truth. (p. 31)

Why is that? It's because of the ten irrational human instincts (the gap instinct, the denial instinct, the straight-line instinct, the fear instinct, the size instinct, the generalization instinct, the fate instinct, the single-perspective instinct, the blame instinct, and the urgency instinct) that perceive "feelings" as "facts."
When people think, guess, and learn about the world, they constantly and intuitively refer to their own worldview, and if an irrational instinct causes an error in that worldview, they are bound to give structurally incorrect answers.
Hans Rosling identified the confusion between facts and claims as a source of social conflict and stress.


The world is not as dramatic as it seems.
Mastering 'factfulness' allows us to replace an overly dramatic worldview with one based on facts.
You can make better decisions, be aware of real risks and possibilities, and not be stressed by misinformation.
Furthermore, you can clear up misunderstandings, become more positive, and embrace new hope.
And finally, we will be able to beat the chimpanzee.
(Dr. Hans Rosling, who dedicated his life to changing humanity's misconceptions, passed away from pancreatic cancer on February 7, 2017, shortly after finishing writing this book.
Factfulness became the culmination of his lifelong research and his last work.)

Based on strong facts, without exaggerating the incident or distorting the perspective.
A revolutionary work that contains an accurate way to see the world!

This book covers a wide range of topics, from the proportion of people living in extreme poverty to the number of years of education for women, life expectancy, global population trends, deaths from natural disasters, childhood vaccination rates, and changes in average temperatures, to understand the true picture of the world.
We present the latest statistical data and introduce the correct viewpoint on it.
Furthermore, it goes beyond emphasizing the importance of accurate information about the world, and systematically reveals the realities we all face, such as the public's tendency to be swayed by the media and the negative psychology that exacerbates crises, as well as solutions to these realities.

Most of the world's population lives in middle-income countries.

Humans have an instinct to pursue dichotomous thinking.
For example, it is a method of dividing the countries of the world into only two groups, such as developed vs. developing countries, Western vs. other, low-income vs. high-income, Northern vs. Southern, etc.
When asked, “What percentage of the world’s population lives in low-income countries?” the majority answered that more than 50%.
But the correct answer is 9%.
Only 9% of the world's population lives in low-income countries.
The majority of the world's population lives in middle-income countries, neither low-income nor high-income.
Middle-income countries are a category that does not exist in the world-dividing mindset, but in reality, they do exist.
75% of humanity lives there.
In this book, Dr. Rosling presents a four-stage classification of countries.
If you earn about $2 a day, you are at level 1, $2 to $8 is level 2, $8 to $32 is level 3, and $32 or more is level 4.
Reality is not as polar opposite as we think.
Where people think there is a gap, in fact, there is a majority of the population.
To suppress the gap instinct, you have to look at the majority.

The news mostly reports dramatic and negative news.

Humans generally pay attention to dramatic situations.
As a result, we pay more attention to and react more sensitively to events that occur infrequently, such as war, natural disasters, corruption, pandemics, mass layoffs, and terrorism, than to everyday events.
In 2015, the world watched the situation in Nepal for about ten days as 9,000 people died.
Meanwhile, during the same period, 9,000 children around the world died from diarrhea caused by drinking contaminated water.
But the camera doesn't show these children unconscious in the arms of their crying parents.
In the first few months of 2009, thousands of people died from the new flu.
The media covered the news extensively for weeks, stoking fear.
However, during the same period, 63,066 people died from tuberculosis.
We are much more likely to die from tuberculosis than from the new flu, but we don't really know this.
We must be aware that the news tends to focus on the negative and dramatic aspects.
Bad news is much more likely to reach us.
So it's easy to have an overly negative impression of the world around you.
You should know that the news always reports only dramatic events.

When an incident occurs, comparing and dividing the facts becomes clear.

People tend to distort proportions and inflate them beyond reality.
Big numbers always look big, and it's easy to misjudge when there's only one number.
This leads us to systematically underestimate the progress of the world.
In 2016, there were 141 million newborns and 4.2 million deaths.
It is so tragic that 4.2 million children die every year.
The mortality rate is 3%, meaning that 3 out of 100 children die before their first birthday.
But let's take a closer look at the statistics. In 1950, there were 97 million newborns and 14.4 million deaths.
At this time, the child mortality rate was 15%.
This means that 15 out of 100 newborns die before their first birthday.
The infant mortality rate dropped from 15% to 3%! The 4.2 million figure alone seems enormous, but when you compare the percentages, the recent figures suddenly appear surprisingly low.
We must realize that when we have any number, big or small, it may seem impressive, but it is only one.
And remember that when you compare that number with another related number or divide it by another number, you may get the opposite impression.
To curb your size instinct, consider proportions.

The world is slowly but surely getting better.

Hans Rosling asked 30 countries, “Do you think the world is getting better, worse, or the same?” and every country answered, “It’s getting worse.”
In particular, Korea had the third highest number of negative responses, following Türkiye, Belgium, and Mexico.
More than 80% of our country's population is pessimistic about the future of the world.
“Things are getting worse” is the phrase we hear most often.
Terrorism and civil war are on the rise, and overfishing and ocean pollution are also worrisome.
Ice will melt and sea levels will continue to rise.
So, is the world really only going to get worse? Statistically, however, looking at the world as a whole, ozone-depleting substances have decreased by a factor of 100 since the 1970s, and disaster death rates have decreased by a factor of 10.
The global illiteracy rate is only 10%, and about 90% of female students have completed primary school.
90% of people have access to safe water and 90% of children are vaccinated, 85% have access to electricity and 65% have mobile phones.
We must recognize that many things, including people, nations, religions, and cultures, can always appear the same because they change slowly.
Remember that even small, slow changes can add up to big changes.

The center of gravity of the global market is shifting to Asia.

The United Nations projects that by the end of the 21st century, the populations of the Americas and Europe will remain virtually unchanged, while Africa will grow by 3 billion and Asia by 1 billion.
It is said that by 2100, more than 80% of the world's population will live in Africa and Asia.
Today, 11% of the world's population, living in wealthy countries around the North Atlantic, account for 60% of the fourth-tier consumer market.
But if incomes continue to rise steadily around the world, as they are now, that proportion will fall to 50% by 2027.
And by 2040, 60% of Stage 4 consumers will live outside the West.
Yes, that's right.
This means that the West's dominance of the world economy will soon end.
We must recognize that a significant portion of the world's population lives in Asia.
In terms of economic influence, Westerners are becoming 20%, not 80%.
The center of gravity of the global market is shifting from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.
If we miss Asia and Africa, we will easily miss out on the people and large markets that will dominate trade in the future.
To change the way we view the world and prepare for future crises and opportunities, we must confirm clear facts, not just our own knowledge and perspective.

Spend just three minutes with Hans Rosling and your world view will change completely.

_〈Nature〉

Bestsellers on statistics are as rare as unicorns.
Reaching number one is as rare as a unicorn on the moon.
Hans Rosling's downside is that he is a lunar-based creature.
It's attractive.
_<times>