At a time when the very ideas of truth, facts, and core principles of justice seem up for grabs, I appreciated the insight of the late Swedish scientist Hans Rosling in his book Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World — and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (Flatiron Books, 2018).
Factfulness came to my attention after Bill Gates offered a free electronic copy to every newly minted college graduate in America last year, calling it “an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.”
Rosling writes that there are important, large-scale global trends — facts, if you will — with considerable, rigorous, and reliable evidence behind them. We don’t often hear about these trends in public discourse, because either they don’t appeal to the appetite for sensational news or they don’t conform to popular opinion.
In Rosling’s view, what’s missing from our post-truth culture is the virtue of objectivity — and the antidote is adopting a “fact-based worldview.”
As higher-education leaders, we should strive to create global citizens and responsible leaders who know certain facts about the way the world works: natural-scientific facts, social-scientific facts, historical facts, and a category that I, going out on a limb, would call social-justice facts.
The university plays a central role in our modern democracy by helping students develop the independent and critical acumen to deliberate about all manner of issues. Rosling’s clarion call reminds us that we must not be shy about teaching facts, so that students, in turn, will not withdraw from the idea of pursuing truth.
Grant H. Cornwell is president of Rollins College.
