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The Gapminder Effect has been measured!

It works!

Right now, the media attention around “fact resistance” makes it seem like it increases. But do we really know? To know such things we must measure it, and to our knowledge nobody has done that.

Six years ago we realized we didn’t know if our presentations had any effect. So we started measuring knowledge. After all Hans’ appearances in media and TED talks, he expected that people would know the facts that he had been repeating. In 2013 we asked a set of knowledge questions to the public in Sweden, only to find that their ignorance of basic global facts was huge.

Only 8% knew that the majority of children get basic vaccines.
Only 23% knew that the global poverty rate has been halved during the last two decades.
Those were multiple choice questions, A, B or C. And a chimpanzees would get 33% correct answers, just by picking randomly.
We were very disappointed.

This year in February, the same month Hans passed away, we asked a new battery of questions. The 2017 results were announced two weeks ago. And to our great relief, they were much better! The Swedish public had improved from 8% to 27% on the vaccination question.

On the poverty trend questions, they were even better than the chimpanzees! That has never happened in Sweden before! Congratulations.

Now we wondered: Was this really thanks to us? So during the last two weeks we have made a follow up study. If only Hans could have seen these results!

The people who picked the correct answer, got a follow up question. “Do you remember from where you got this knowledge?”

We gave them an open answer field to write whatever came to their mind. So we didn’t trick them. This word cloud shows word sizes by their frequency.

46% of the people who answered correctly, attributed their knowledge to “Rosling” or “Gapminder”. We call it the Gapminder effect!

Our conclusion is: It works! We should just continue doing what we have been doing for 18 years, and spread a fact-based worldview, the way we do it.

Please grab our slides, tools and exam questions, and help more people learn the basic global facts!

🙂 Ola Rosling

 

Published on: Apr 22, 2017

Results for the Swedish Public on the ‘Gapminder Test 2017’

We asked the Swedish public 12 questions about the the world: those are basic global facts you need to know to start building a fact-based worldview.

Check the questions and results below! You can also see the complete report here.

1. In the last 20 years the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, worldwide, has…?
A. Almost doubled
B. Remained more or less the same
C. Almost halved

Correct answer: Almost halved
Source: World Bank

 

2. How many of the world’s 1-year-old children today have been vaccinated against some disease?
A. 80%
B. 50%
C. 20%

Correct answer: 80%

Source: WHO & UNICEF

 

 

3. How did the number of deaths per year from natural disasters change over the last hundred years?
A. More than doubled
B. Remained more or less the same
C. Decreased to less than half

Correct answer: Decreased to less than half

Source: OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database

 

4. Of all people in the world today, the majority live in:
A. Low income countries
B. Middle income countries
C. High income countries

Correct answer: Middle income countries
Source: World Bank Population Data

 

5. Worldwide, 30 year old men have spent 10 years in school, on average. How many years have women of the same age spent in school?
A. 9 years
B. 6 years
C. 3 years

Correct answer: 9 years
Source: IHME Global Educational Attainment

 

6. There are roughly seven billion people in the world today. Which map shows where people live? (Each figure represents 1 billion people.)

 

Correct: A
Source: Based on 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects

 

7. The United Nations predicts that by 2100 the world population will have increased by another 4 billion people. What is the main reason?
A. There will be more children
B. There will be more adults
C. There will be more very old people

 

Correct answer: There will be more adults
Source: 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects

 

8. In all low income countries across the world today, how many girls finish primary school?
A. 20%
B. 40%
C. 60%

Correct answer: 60%
Source: UNESCO

 

9. There are two billion children in the world today, aged 0 to 15 years old. How many children will there be in the year 2100 according to the United Nations?
A. 4 billion
B. 3 billion
C. 2 billion

Correct answer: 2 billion
Source: 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects

 

10. The global climate experts believe that, over the next 100 years, the average temperature will:
A. Get warmer
B. Remain the same
C. Get colder

Correct answer: Get warmer
Source: IPCC

 

11. How many people in the world have some access to electricity?
A. 20%
B. 50%
C. 80%

Correct answer: 80%
Source: Global Electrification database

 

12. What is the life expectancy of the world population?
A. 50 years
B. 60 years
C. 70 years

Correct answer: 70 years
Source: WHO

Ignorance Survey in Germany 2014

In August 2014 the Ignorance Survey was conducted in one more country!

We asked selected questions about global development trends to a representative sample of the German population and here are the results:

Results German Ignorance 2014

You can also read the full story (in German) here.

The Ignorance Survey was conducted in Germany in a collaboration between DER SPIEGEL and TNS Infratest GmbH, Berlin.

You can read more about our ignorance project here: www.gapminder.org/ignorance

Highlights from Ignorance survey in the UK

Highlights from the first UK survey re ignorance of global trends. A preliminary summary by Hans Rosling, Gapminder Foundation, 3 Nov, 2013

Gapminder’s mission is to fight devastating ignorance about the world with a fact-based worldview that everyone can understand. We started the Ignorance Project to measure what people know and don´t know about major global trends. Read more about the project here: www.gapminder.org/ignorance/

For the web-based Ignorance surveys we develop questions with clear cut response alternatives together with Novus International AB www.novus.se/english.aspx. We conducted a first web-survey in the UK in May 2013 in collaboration with SSI www.surveysampling.com. Their web-panel answered a set of questions including the seven questions listed below.

The aim of these surveys is to understand how deep and how widespread the public ignorance of major global development trends is in different countries. We are investigating the knowledge about the order of magnitude and speed of change of the most important aspects of the life conditions of the total world population. The first survey covered some major trends in demography, health, education and energy.

Below are the percent answers for each response alternative in seven of the multiple-choice questions from all the 1012 respondents in the UK panel, and shown separately are also the results for the 373 out of these respondents that had reported to have a university degree (including from the Open University). For each question below we have marked the CORRECT answer and provide a link to the datasource. Our initial conclusions are listed after the questions below.

1. In the year 2000 the total number of children (age 0-14) in the world reached 2 billion. How many do UN experts estimate there will be by the year 2100?

Total

University

 
4 billion

48%

45%
3 billion

44%

48%
2 billion

6%

6%

CORRECT
1 billion

2%

1%

Source: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm
 

2. What % of adults in the world today are literate, i.e. can read and write?

Total

University

 
20% of adults

12%

15%
40% of adults

38%

43%
60% of adults

43%

39%
80% of adults

8%

4%

CORRECT

Source: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS/countries?display=graph 
 

3. What is the life expectancy in the world as a whole today?

Total

University

 
40 years

5%

7%
50 years

18%

23%
60 years

33%

43%
70 years

30%

20%

CORRECT
80 years

14%

8%

Source: http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situation_trends/en/index.html
 

4. In the last 30 years the proportion of the World population living in extreme poverty has…

 

Total

University

 
Increased

58%

55%
Remained more or less the same

33%

33%
Decreased

10%

12%

CORRECT

Source: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Goal_1_fs.pdf
 

5. What % of total world energy generated comes from solar and wind power? Is it approximately

 

Total

University

 
2% of world energy

30%

37%

CORRECT
5% of world energy

29%

32%
10% of world energy

22%

18%
20% of world energy

16%

12%
40% of world energy

3%

1%

Source: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2013_FINAL_WEB.pdf
 

6. What is the life expectancy in Bangladesh today?

 

Total

University

 
40 years

24%

27%
50 years

37%

44%
60 years

29%

22%
70 years

8%

6%

CORRECT
80 years

2%

1%

Source: http://www.who.int/gho/countries/bgd.pdf
 

7. How many babies do women have on average in Bangladesh?

Total

University

 
2.5 babies

12%

10%

CORRECT
3.5 babies

31%

33%

 
4.5 babies

35%

36%
5.5 babies

22%

20%

Source: http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/unpp/panel_indicators.htm
 

Conclusions:

  • Question 1: The answers reveal very deep ignorance about population growth. Only 7% know that the total number of children (below age 15) already has stopped increasing. Almost half of the respondents think there will be twice as many children in the world by the end of the century compared to the forecast of the UN experts.
  • Questions 2 and 3: Answers show that the respondents think the literacy rate and the life expectancy of the world population is around 50% and 60 years (median values), respectively. But these figures correspond to the how the world was more than 30 years ago.
  • Question 4: The results show that just 10% are aware of that the United Nations’ first Millennium Development Goal, to halve the world poverty rate, has already been met, even before the target year 2015. More than half think the poverty rate has increased. It is important to understand that random guessing would have yielded 33% correct answers. The result is therefore not due to lack of knowledge, rather it must be due to preconceived ideas. The results strongly indicate that the UK public has failed to be informed about the progress towards the first of the UN´s Millennium Development Goals.
  • Question 5: Two thirds of the respondents severely overestimate the present role of new renewable sources of energy in world energy production. The present proportion is close to 1%.
  • Questions 6 and 7: The respondents reveal a deep ignorance about the progress of Bangladesh during the last two to three decades. Only about one in ten know that life expectancy in Bangladesh today is 70 years and that women on average have 2.5 babies.

The results indicate that the UK population severely underestimates the progress in education, health and fertility reduction in the world as a whole and in countries like Bangladesh, whereas they severely overestimate how much the richest countries have changed to renewable energy. It is noteworthy that the results from those with university degrees are not better than the average results, if anything they are worse. The results from UK are similar to those obtained by a 2013 survey in Sweden.