New book reasons why things are better than they seem

The authors of "Factfulness," described by Bill Gates as "one of the most important books" he has ever read, say most people have wrong notions of important global trends.

The book by Hans Rosling, a doctor and professor of international health, his son and daughter-in-law sets out to help readers to recognise over-dramatic stories about the world's current condition.

Rosling says the book is his very last battle in his lifelong mission to fight devastating global ignorance, and, in his own words, to "change people's way of thinking, calm their irrational fears, and redirect their energies into constructive activities".

The authors claim that when asked simple questions about global trends -- how many people around the world are poor, why is the global population increasing, how many girls finish school -- we, according to the book, systematically get wrong answers.

In the book, Rosling offers a "radical new explanation of why this happens", and reveals the ten instinctive reasons that distort our worldviews.

Factfulness is a term used to refer to stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which one has strong supporting facts.

By differentiating between a "stressful and misleading" over-dramatic worldview and a fact-based worldview, Rosling's book revs up one's mind with thinking tools that help get the bigger picture right.

-- IANS

sj/ss/anp/sed