Talk:Hans Rosling

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OECD World Forum talk[edit]

I wasn't sure if I should like to my blog post that includes background info for his OECD World Forum talk, or if I should have just linked to the video directly which might have made less sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jesserobbins (talk • contribs) 18:13, 13 July 2007‎ (UTC)[reply]


The Ehrlichs[edit]

Is the linked rambling article from the Ehrlichs really relevant? jax (talk) 18:22, 10 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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External links modified[edit]

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Date of death[edit]

I recently reverted a change in the date of death from the seventh to the sixth of February, based on the gapminder press release. In a conversation with the editor who made the change, they indicate the death was widely reported in Swedish media as occurring on the sixth. I was hoping we could clear it up here. I also found The Guardian reporting it on the 7th, however my ability to search Swedish media is limited. Anyone have better information? --TeaDrinker (talk) 13:29, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Reception of Rosling’s Views on the World's Future —risks of Advocacy and "Armouring"[edit]

This section on Reception of Rosling's views on the world's future used to begin, logically, with a clarification of how Rosling’s more controversial views, especially as represented in his final book subtitled “Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think”, relate to the rest of his career. It began:

In numerous speeches and articles, especially towards the end of his life, Rosling moved outside his more specialized areas of medical research and advanced optimistic general views of humanity's future, best summarised in his posthumous book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think'.' Rosling did not believe that current, or future, levels of population and consumption had done or would do unacceptable damage to the planet or to civil society.

This led on to an account of several authorities who found his arguments flawed or his views overly optimistic.

  • "Rosling's optimism was enthusiastically welcomed by some reviewers, but rejected by others; and while his views were well accepted by neo-liberals, technological enthusiasts and some opponents of birth-control, they alarmed many environmentalists, {REF: See for instance the statements by the UK group Population Matters [and by the US environmentalist Leon Kolankiewicz: POPULATION PESSIMISTS VS. POPULATION POLLYANNAS.} and even some fellow technologists . . ."


Subsequently, relevant material was added about Rosling’s response to such criticisms and his claim to be not an “optimist” but a (rational) “possibilist”, producing a balanced account of this controversy.

However, some further additions crossed the line into Advocacy of Rosling’s views.

By 22 September 2019, the initial distinction between Rosling’s work on (primarily medical) statistics and his larger world views had been removed, as was reference to criticism by environmentalists such as Kolankiewicz. Professor Berggren’s listing of 3 serious problems with Rosling’s thought was at first removed, and then after something of an editing war, partially restored, but minus Berggren’s 2nd and 3rd problems, viz:

  • Second, “No discussion of the ecological consequences of the current progress”.
  • Third, misleading statistics on world population growth, plus confused or questionable suggestions that “continued population growth is inevitable and unproblematic”.

This section had also been re-structured, resulting in the following debatable features:

  • 1. It began not with responses to Rosling’s world view but with his rebuttal of his critics.
  • 2. Rosling’s rebuttal claims were presented as simple fact.
  • 3. Berggren’s highly critical review of Rosling’s final book was introduced as an example of a misunderstanding of Rosling’s views which occurred “at the time”:
    • "Despite Rosling’s insistence that global risks pose severe threats to the future of the planet and humanity, he was at [the] time criticized for allegedly not considering these risks. For example, in [Berggren’s] 'The One-Sided Worldview of Hans Rosling' . . ."
  • 4. Considerable attempts were made to “armour” Rosling against his critics by representing him as having always entirely shared their concerns:
    • “Rosling repeated throughout his career that he is not an optimist and insisted that the world faces severe risks. . . . In his posthumous book Factfulness he was especially concerned about humanity’s impact on the environment.” {In reality, only one of “The five global risks that concern me” (on which Rosling is quoted, from Factfulness, in the article) was environmental.}
    • The final book’s optimistic-sounding sub-title “Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think” was not mentioned in this discussion.
    • Paul and Anne Ehrlich’ severe criticism of Rosling in their article “A Confused statistician” as offering erroneous population statistics and denying the predictable ill-effects of continued population growth upon environments, was mis-presented as a case of the Ehrlich’s actually agreeing with points that had been first made by Rosling:
      • "The Ehrlichs agree with Rosling's view . . . etc."

If such oddities continue, I imagine it will eventually be necessary for senior editors to step in.

For the present, I have made a partial repair of the section, but in a spirit of collegiality have left out Kolankiewicz‘s and Population Matters’s criticisms, and also Berggren’s second and third “problems” with Rosling’s world view. I have retained the somewhat dubious claim that Rosling always rejected optimism and “did recognize that the world faces severe risks, and that future human activity has the potential to do unacceptable damage to the planet or to civil society”, though I suspect that a proper balance would require citation of numerous quotations in which Rosling appears far more dismissive of global risks.

I will leave it to others to decide if this section’s opening distinction/clarification should be restored, between Rosling’s medical researches and his global worldviews. Marcasella (talk) 02:30, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

==Further polemic incursions==

Further evidence that editors of this page need to be wary of polemic incursions occurred on 29 October when an otherwise unknown editor called FeXyl7 silently removed most of the material about criticism of Rosling's optimistic views by fellow experts, merely noting briefly that information had been added about "Syria". I have restored this missing material; and ask other editors to be on the watch for similar events. Marcasella (talk) 14:02, 9 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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