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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Book of the Week

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Factual

Serialised book readings, featuring works from various genres

Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history

BBC Radio 4 LW

Book of the Week: Factfulness

Adrian Rawlins

Hans Rosling

Anna Magnusson

Eilidh McCreadie

Book of the Week: Factfulness: Episode 4

Factual: Life Stories

Factfulness

Episode 4

BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Factfulness, Episode 4

Hans Rosling suggests that our attraction to simple ideas stops us tackling big problems.

Is our attraction to simple solutions preventing us from tackling the world's big problems effectively? Professor Hans Rosling thinks so.

Hans Rosling suggests that our attraction to simple solutions is preventing us from tackling the world's big problems effectively.

Professor Hans Rosling was 'the man in whose hands data sings'. He was dubbed 'a true inspiration' by Bill Gates and became a viral celebrity thanks to his popular TED talks which broke down the statistics behind global health and economics.

Before his death in 2017 Rosling spent years asking global audiences simple questions about basic trends. How widespread is extreme poverty? What is life expectancy today? How many children in the world have been vaccinated? He quizzed everyone from medics to lecturers, bankers, political decision makers - even Nobel Laureates. And the results were always the same.

"Everyone seems to get the world not only devastatingly wrong, but systematically wrong. By which I mean, that these test results are worse than random. They are worse than the results I would get if the people answering my questions had no knowledge at all."

Identifying key evolutionary instincts that prevent us from seeing the world as it really is, Rosling asks us to fundamentally shift our view of the world - but we have an engaging and entertaining guide on our journey.

Abridged by Anna Magnusson
Read by Adrian Rawlins
Producer Eilidh McCreadie.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Hans Rosling asks why we are convinced that the world is more hopeless than it really is.

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