Pioneering Data Genius Hans Rosling Passes Away At Age 68

An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, Sweden's prime minister tweeted that Hans Rosling "made human progress across our world come alive for millions," and the public educator will probably best be remembered as the man who could condense 200 years of global history into four minutes. He was a geek's geek, a former professor of global health who "dropped out" because he wanted to help start a nonprofit about data. Specifically, it urged data-based decisions for global development policy, and the Gapminder foundation created the massive Trendalyzer tool which let users build their own data visualizations. Eventually they handed off the tool to Google who used it with open-source scientific datasets. The BBC describes Rosling as a "public educator" with a belief that facts "could correct 'global ignorance' about the reality of the world, which 'has never been less bad.'" Rosling's TED talks include "The Best Data You've Never Seen" and "How Not To Be Ignorant About The World," and in 2015 he also gave a talk titled "How to Beat Ebola." Hans Rosling died Tuesday at age 68.

Pubic educator?

[BlackPignouf]

"professor-turned-pubic educator".
Okay. I'll definitely not RTFA.

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[imidan]

The odd thing is, they revised the summary but still left the word 'pubic' there.

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[TWX]

It sounds like your pubic area has a lot of education but zero real-world experience.

His dream will never be realized

[smooth wombat]

with a belief that facts "could correct 'global ignorance' about the reality of the world,

As we are seeing first hand, facts don't matter.

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[dgatwood]

And neither does spelling, apparently.

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[segedunum]

Whenever you see someone claim that they have facts, and really believes that they do, you can safely assume that they don't and are to be treated with the utmost suspicion.

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[ZorroXXX]

- Follow those that seek the truth, run from those that claim to have found it.

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[Tablizer]

As we are seeing first hand, facts don't matter.

They do matter, many just don't get accurate facts, or get conflicting sub-sets of facts such that they use "gut feelings" to sort them out--and guts are often wrong and manipulate-able.

We should probably also view T as an experiment. Many whose families lost jobs when factories closed or migrated away probably agree that automation is a bigger threat to that kind of work than China or Mexico.

BUT enough of them were willing to gamble that T was partly or mostl

Facts matter more than ever

[SuperKendall]

As we are seeing first hand, facts don't matter.

The election showed us that facts matter more than ever; once the facts of Hillary's emails and treatment of Sanders came to light, she lost even though a lot of people disliked Trump a great deal.

The media has showed us that a lack of facts of disaster; the approval rating for traditional media is now at something like 14%.

Facts matter more than ever now, but the facts must be carefully vetted or people will not believe them - with good reason, because so man

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[ooloorie]

As we are seeing first hand, facts don't matter.

Well, they certainly haven't mattered for the past eight years, with Obama pushing one policy after another that's unsupported by facts: income redistribution, green energy, gun control, welfare spending, tax policy, ACA, drone killings, anti-terrorism efforts, education policy, etc., all rooted in cronyism, lobbyism, and knee-jerk policy making.

I'm hoping that is changing now. We will see.

Reality is a vengeful bitch.

[denzacar]

You are confusing the ability of an ignorant person to shoot its own foot off, despite being told not to do it, by well informed people, cause it will hurt - with irrelevance of the facts.

Facts matter. Cause facts are reality.
And reality is a vengeful bitch even when you're paying attention to her every whim.
You may not have noticed it yet cause it's only starting to rain, and you haven't been paying attention, but that what's coming along down the road is a 4-year-long shitstorm.
And the shit that will rain

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[Trogre]

Oh really? Care to elaborate?

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[ooloorie]

I prefer PBAJ to PBUH.

He was an inspiration

[memoriesofgreen]

A real genius

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[Jailbrekr]

As opposed to heresay and anaecdotal evidence, amirite?

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[segedunum]

Statistics *is* hocus pocus hearsay. That's how 'experts' have ended up being wrong on nearly everything from financial crashes to elections. But, we'll just keep painting over that. Maybe one of them will get it right eventually. :-)

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[avandesande]

huge amount of statistical crap

agreed. I would put that figure at roughly 67.35%, but only when spouting.

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[segedunum]

You probably didn't mean to, but you've inadvertently made my point for me.

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[slashrio]

I miss him already. :(

sad loss

[ooloorie]

Rosling was a voice of reason and sanity. He will be missed.

Re:sad loss

[ceoyoyo]

Judging by the comments so far in this thread the work he so brilliantly started has a long way to go. I hope his foundation successfully continues his legacy.

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[retroworks]

Back in 2006 or 2007, he identified Journalists as way behind students (who were behind random chimpanzees) in correctly answering questions about "third world". Journalists have been living in 1970 when it comes to "lesser developed countries", apparently blowback to their profession from decades of "if it bleeds, it leads". I had my kids all watch his vids while in high school, there was no one like him.

Population population population

[Anonymous Coward]

How has the summary and every commenter so far missed his contribution toward clearly presenting the facts of world population growth? Ideas like "peak child", "population fill-in", that population Is going to level off at 11billion within the next 70 years. I've heard a few people criticize Hans' work in population but they never give facts or citations, which Hans provides in spades.
DON'T PANIC â" Hans Rosling showing the facts about population