Factfulness

I've recently finished reading Hans Rosling's book, Factfulness, which shows the reader how wrong we are in a lot of our assumptions. Sadly, Rosling died of cancer in 2017.

At the beginning of the book is a set of questions that test the reader. The test, along with polls conducted by Rosling, show that we generally believe the world is poorer, less healthy, and more dangerous than it actually is. Rosling attributes this not to random chance but to misinformation. Apparently, answering the test questions on the basis of random choice produces more accurate answers than the vast majority of people give on the basis of their faulty assumptions. 

I recently saw an advert on Facebook in support of an initiative to save the honey bee, which most of us assume is on the list of endangered species. This is factually incorrect - the honey bee is not, and never has been, endangered. In fact, numbers are close to an all-time high. There are 8 species of bee that are endangered, but not the honey bee. Check, if you don't believe me - it just takes a few keystrokes and ensuring you verify what you find with real-world data from experts, not alarmist propaganda.

We're also led to believe that if bees disappeared, human civilisation would collapse through lack of food. In fact, many important crops need no insect pollination at all. The ten most important crops, comprising 60% of all human food energy, all fall into this category: Plantains are sterile and propagated by cuttings, as are cassava. potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes are root vegetables propagated by tubers. Soybeans are self-pollinated. Rice, wheat, sorghum, and maize are all wind pollinated, as are most other grasses. Similarly, no crops originating in the New World depend on the western honey bee, which was brought to the New World by colonisers.

Much of what we believe to be fact isn't. The media is to blame for much of this, as good news doesn't sell, but bad news does and so, bad news is blown out of all proportion or even manufactured.