

Hans Rosling: Debunking 3rd world myths with the best stats you've ever seen - jamiequint
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

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pchristensen
His 2007 talk was better.
[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html)

Best. Finale. Ever.

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auntjemima
I liked that talk -- but I've read that infant mortality rates are a
misleading indicator and I really want to know what Mr. Rosling think about
the subject. The U.S. brings far more _at risk_ kids into the world and so the
statistic is deflated. Because those at risk kids are way more likely to die
in the first year (instead of in the womb).

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yummyfajitas
Another factor to consider is that people of african descent tend to have more
low birthweight babies than other groups. Low birthweight babies die more,
regardless of the medical system. African descended people are common in the
US, Brazil and Caribbean, but not so much in Europe.

But it isn't really a fault of the medical system or development process, just
genetic/hereditary bad luck.

I'd suggest the trend lines on his charts are more meaningful than individual
bubbles.

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dcurtis
Really? From research I have done in the past, I never noticed any discrepancy
in infant mortality between African Americans and white Americans in the
United States.

Remember where you learned this? I'd be interested to learn more.

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yummyfajitas
Newspaper article, most likely, I don't remember exactly. However, a quick
google search for "low birth weight race" yields:

<http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5127a1.htm#tab1>

Here is another quirk of the measurement system I just discovered while
googling. Low birthweight rates _increase_ with income (at least in Brazil):

[http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118696841/abstrac...](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118696841/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0)

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shadytrees
He's using Trendalyzer, software he developed that Google later acquired.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trendalyzer>

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dustineichler
i thought that looked familiar, yes it's still in the lobby at google. The
onset of AIDS and the hope of the Internet discuss is a dramatic swing and
makes his talk equally evocative.

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cia_plant
For some unexplained reason, Rosling sets GDP on a logarithmic scale. This
basically normalizes the assumption that wealth is extremely unequal (i.e.,
follows some sort of exponential curve). Which is not to say that this isn't
the natural state of things, perhaps it is, but it's misleading to adjust your
graphs so that this is the baseline and then talk about the lack of an "income
gap".

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thwarted
If it wasn't on a logarithmic scale, the axis would be so wide as to
overshadow the other axises (and there are a lot of axises in those graphs).
The absolute values in the range of the "income gap" may not be important when
the purchasing power in each locality is taken into account. Like when he
mentions the wealth of the UAE only seemed to reduce their childhood mortality
rates once education and infrastructure improvements were made. It wouldn't
matter if they had even more money (or if the graph was a non-logarithmic
scale). His point is that narrowing the income gap isn't some silver bullet
that suddenly fixes things.

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kqr2
Also, more information at the website:

<http://www.gapminder.org/>

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jgfoot
Play along yourself at <http://tools.google.com/gapminder/>

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nihilocrat
These presentations just make me want to move to Sweden.

The data says it's a very "good" country, and it has people like this guy
living / growing up there.

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pchristensen
I lived there for two years, and I confirm that it's a good country. Beautiful
country, nice clean cities, good people, etc.

The three hours of daylight this time of year are a pain though.

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schtog
Hehe, danish? You study?

I live in the south(Skåne) and yes even here it is too dark.

Great country society-wise, climate-wise not so much.

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eru
Even down south in Germany it's dark. (Note, New York and Rome are around the
latitude.)

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alecco
2006?

