What was Hans Rosling’s observation regarding his comparative survey of students at the Karolinska Institute and the Chimpanzees (as well as the faculty who decide the Nobel Prize)? What is the significance of the results from his informal survey on preconceived ideas?

Hans Rosling discovered that the top ranking Swedish students have also been exposed to preconceived ideas of global health, categorized under an average of 1.8 out of 5 correct answer reports. Furthermore, Rosling identified that the Chimpanzees scored higher than these students with a score of 2.5 out of 5 on average, which also happened to be close to the Nobel Prize faculty around 2.4 out of 5. Overall, the significance of this study is that data should not be underestimated and should be spread a lot more around the world to deconstruct these preconceived ideas of global health.

What type of change took place in Asia that preceded economic growth? Why was this type of change significant?

A social change occurred in Asia, specifically Vietnam, where the region gravitated towards a market economy after shedding a Communist planning perspective, which may be largely due to the United States’ influence on the region during the war. Moreover, family planning in Asia began to expand rapidly as families became smaller and life expectancies increased. This type of change is significant because the data can help nations and data scientists identify trends in global crises and learn how to mitigate them with data and social context.

In accordance with Hans Rosling’s TED talk, what is the relationship between child mortality and GDP per capita?

According to Hans Rosling, there seems to be a positive correlation between lower child mortality rates and increasing GDP per capita in the developing world. However, Rosling points out that although these are simply the regions that are being compared, data helps us break down the regions to observe how specific nations within those regions vary from others within the same region. For example, Rosling points out that Cuba is the leading country in Latin America for healthcare, but Chile will be able to catch up over the years with less child mortality and more GDP per capita than other countries in the same region.

In terms of income distribution, how has the world changed from 1962 until 2003?

The world has changed from 1962 to 2003 by improving its health conditions and education in order to foster a better place for economic growth. In conjunction with economic growth, countries are able to invest their money and resources more wisely. Moreover, it’s important to recognize that using average data in regions is not that accurate, which should encourage a more in-depth analysis of nations within those regions as they have their own pace of development.

What is the significance of how Hans Rosling uses data to describe global human development in terms of very high spatial and temporal resolutions? How does this relate to his previous observation regarding preconceived ideas?

The key point that Rosling makes in his presentation is that regional data should not be trusted at all times as it tries to group countries with various development paces into one statistic. This also feeds into a representative heuristic of categorizing nations into poverty and healthcare numbers that do not apply to all of them. In regards to Rosling, this type of research neglects the social context of countries and focuses on a global hierarchy rather than a regional hierarchy, which negates the diversity of data from various countries. This is relevant to the idea of preconceived ideas because even high-ranking students such as those from Sweden are subject to misinformation and its spread through mediums like social media and public spaces.

In your opinion, why was Hans Rosling’s work with the Gapminder project significant in contributing towards advancing the intersection of data science and global human development?

Rosling’s work with the Gapminder project contributes towards advancing the intersection of data science and global human development by making data accessible and user-friendly to people on the web. The idea of having these trends in data searchable to the public is one of his main goals for participating in the project. Furthermore, he mentions that statisticians may not be fond of this program because it may lack statistical analysis methods, but it does account for the diversity of income distribution and other variables that are available in the software.