I'm just about six years behind most people. For example, I just discovered the book "Factfulness" by Hans Rosling, as well as the informative website www.gapminder.org. The book was released in the United States on April 3, 2018. What does that book and website tell us? It tells us about true global human progress and that if we relied upon facts instead of instincts, then we would realize that things are better than we think. Of course, there are other media outlets that let us know the same things. However, Hans Rosling and his team's work is a bit more expounding, comprehensive and revealing.

We, humans, cannot rid ourselves of instinct, which is a largely inheritable and unalterable tendency to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason. This is good if you are face-to-face with a growling and barking canine or a slithering unknown snake. There is no time or reason for cognitive philosophy to kick in, but only to run, jump or get out of the way of potential harm. Herein lies the problem: Far too many people use instinct concerning their perceptions of the world, instead of thinking and reasoning with deliberation to attain clear ideas and conclusions about global trends and the state of the world that we live in.

"Factfulness" and Gapminder expound on topics like extreme poverty, disease, economic growth, education quality, global collaborations, Internet usage, climate change and many other subjects. They continually update and upgrade their information from resources like U.S. agencies and bureaus, Gallup Inc. and PEW Research Center and www.globaldatalab.org and www.ourworldindata.org, International Comparison Program, International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group, Internet System Consortium, Overseas Development Institute, World Health Organization and other arms of the United Nations, and a host of others, including Wikipedia. Cited also is the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which still puts a price tag on lots of taxpayers' data.

Here is something that caught my eye: Evidence does not support that democracy leads to, or is even a requirement for, good things like peace, social progress, health improvements and economic growth. "Most countries that make economic and social progress are not democracies. South Korea moved from low level to high level faster than any country had ever done (without finding oil), all the time as a military dictatorship. Of the 10 countries with the fastest economic growth in the years 2012-2016, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Laos, China, Ethiopia, and Myanmar scored very low on democracy." Thus, there is no single solution to good things, not even a good democracy. Reality is a bit more complicated than that. Too, improvement in one thing does not guarantee improvement in other things.

I'm persuaded that Roslingwas trying to make people do the right thing and care about the world. In a sense, he was trying to educate people, including doctors, professors, journalists, other professionals and students as well as laymen about their assumptions and misconceptions of the world. By the way, there is a Korean language translation available, published by Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc.

The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella “Beyond Harvard” and teaches English as a second language.