The problem with this video is that it presents a political standpoint as cold science, yet the data upon which the point is based are deeply flawed.

For example, the claim that muslims make up 20% of the world but that muslims only account for 1% of peer-reviewed papers is incongrous; many muslims don't live in muslim countries, but their scientific output is ignored. By the same reckoning, Jews are bad scientists because Israel only produces a relatively small number of patent applications per year (about 100,000 in 2002, compared to 250,000 for Turkey and about the same number granted as Saudi Arabia, for example). Once you put it in those terms, the absurdity of this cherry-picking should become apparent - jews have the highest nobel prizes per capita of any ethnic group, but that fact is ignored by this rather convenient form of analysis. Incidentally, Turkey apply for much more patents per capita per head than the US, for example, so does that mean you'll admit you're wrong?

Quote: "If you can show me a country that practice a sincerely devout version of islam while soaring in reason, philosophy scientific advances, free speech, human rights, equality, freedom, tolerance and justice you might have had some reason to say the correlation is bullshit and the argument is just simplistic prejudice" - don't bother replying, just winding you up.

Furthermore, the article fails to take into account other factors that could contribute to this scientific underachievement: for example, how Islamic countries compare to other countries with similar GDPs? A few contributors have claimed that islamic countries are rich, but this is not actually true. The islamic state with the highest GDP is Kuwait(followed by UAE) - both of these countries have about the same average income as that bastion of richess, um, Ireland. Most of the others are in the poor house: Oman and the Saudis pull in the same as the Greeks, and the rest straddle Ukraine. Hardly money to burn on particle accelerators.

Of course religion is overtly obstructive to scientific progress - just google 'texas school board'; that's not the point made in this video, probably because the main determinant of scientific prowess is actually how much money you spend on it.

Speaking of scientific lucidity, all of the stats I cited were from Gapminder.org, who dredged them from UN reports.

>> ^heathen:
Gapminder's data for 2007 also shows Bermuda ahead of the USA for percentage of population online, (not just broadband users), although Greenland was the number 1 that year.


Ah, whoops, I tried to be clever and include a link with labels on the relevant countries, but it seems Sifty didn't like it being so long.

Hopefully the full link will display below, if not just go to www.gapminder.org/world and select "Open Graph Menu" and then "Who has the most Internet users?"


http://www.gapminder.org/world/#$majorMode=chart$is;shi=t;ly=2003;lb=f;il=t;fs=11;al=100;stl=t;st=f;nsl=t;se=t$wst;tts=C$ts;sp=6;ti=2007$zpv;v=0$inc_x
;mmid=XCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj1jiMAkmq1iMg;by=ind$inc_y;mmid=YCOORDS;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0xiDjWaypQTg;by=ind$inc_s;uniValue=8.21;iid=phAwcNAVuyj0XOoBL_n5tAQ
;by=ind$inc_c;uniValue=255;gid=CATID0;by=grp$map_x;scale=log;dataMin=269;dataMax=119849$map_y;scale=lin;dataMin=0;dataMax=91$map_s;sma=49;smi=2.65$cd;
bd=0$inds=i24_r,,,,,,;i239_n,,akak;i86_n,,akak;modified=58

>> ^Croccydile:

I don't think they are very fair with the Internet rankings though. Certainly the US is not #1 in the world but... Bermuda? That would be like putting 10mbit broadband on Guam and then calling it the largest broadband penetration in the world. Most certainly I take my connection at home with blessings as compared to say, "broadband" in Mexico. (Hint: Honest to goodness telco monopoly)


Gapminder's data for 2007 also shows Bermuda ahead of the USA for percentage of population online, (not just broadband users), although Greenland was the number 1 that year.

So he prevaricates and says that "this bill is a baby killer". Hrm. Let's fact check that. I went on over to Gapminder, and generated a graph with per capita health expenditures vs. infant mortality, which can be found here: www.bit.ly/ah14zH

As you might imagine, the current state of things finds us with a deplorable infant mortality rate, when compared with industrialized countries practicing 'socialized medicine'. One wonders which bill (or lack of a bill) is the real 'baby killer'.

*promote

To inaugurate the Sustainability Channel; in honour of this being the best TEDTalk; because the Gapminder software has seen major upgrades.

this is a follow-up to http://www.videosift.com/video/Ideas-Worth-Spreading-Hans-Roslings-Gapminder

This has been sifted before from google videos: http://www.videosift.com/video/Ideas-Worth-Spreading-Hans-Roslings-Gapminder

Not only is this a cool software for digging through statistics and put them in perspective, but it's also a web page.
www.gapminder.org

Fascinating toy.

Also of interest:
http://www.gapminder.org/
http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php
http://maps.maplecroft.com/

Three fantastic tools that are easy to use and very much worth exploring.

Just curious why not discard this video or why keep it?

In reply to your comment:
“hate to say it, but it's a dupe
http://www.videosift.com/video/Ideas-Worth-Spreading-Hans-Roslings-Gapminder
i don't really see any point to doing a discard tho”

hate to say it, but it's a dupe
http://www.videosift.com/video/Ideas-Worth-Spreading-Hans-Roslings-Gapminder
i don't really see any point to doing a discard tho

Here's a flash version of those very cool graphs:

http://tools.google.com/gapminder/