Factfulness – Book Review

Bill Gates himself has written a review for this book on GoodReads. Factfulness has a very similar premise to Freakonomics. I like numbers. Numbers do not lie. However, the way they are presented, the emphasis placed on certain numbers over others can be misleading. 

This book creates a shared sense of reality, and it’s very important that this reality has a solid grounding in science and reason.

There are ten instincts addressed: gap, negativity, straight line, fear, size, generalization, destiny, single perspective, blame, and urgency. They are valuable heuristics for evaluating what we see and hear. 

The data points are from Gapminder Foundation whose blurb is – Gapminder is an independent Swedish foundation with no political, religious or economic affiliations. Gapminder fights devastating misconceptions and promotes a fact-based worldview everyone can understand.