Are You as Intelligent as a Chimp? --from BBC

Hans Rosling: How much do you know about the world?

• Take the 'ignorance test'
• Five good things

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine

• Viewpoint: Five ways the world is doing better than you think
• Is there an 'angst canon' of books that teenagers read?
• Are children given too many toys?
• Why Hitler put 'degenerate' art on show

The world may have many problems, from climate change to armed conflict, natural disasters, poverty and the oppression of women and minorities - but where does population growth fit into this catalogue of woes?

With the population of the world at seven billion and rising, many fear a shortage of resources as well as a shortage of space. Swedish professor Hans Rosling, however, says it's time for a reality check.
When pollsters got 1,000 British people to take Rosling's "ignorance survey" in May this year, the results suggested they knew "less about the world than chimpanzees", he says.

Take a version of the test in this quiz, compare your results with the British respondents', then read Hans Rosling's five reasons the world is in better shape than we think.

Continue reading the main story
 

"If for each question I wrote each of the possible alternatives on bananas, and asked chimpanzees in the zoo to pick the right answers, and by picking the right bananas, they'd just pick bananas at random. But the Brits did even worse," says Rosling.

Continue reading the main story

Find out more

Don't Panic - The Truth About Population will be broadcast on BBC Two on Thursday 7 November at 21:00 GMT (23:20 GMT in Scotland)

Or watch later on the BBC iPlayer

To be fair, so did the Swedes, the only other nation to have been polled so far. In a speech to TED downloaded almost six million times, he points out that he also put the questions to some fellow professors, and they were on a par with chimpanzees, too. 

The fact that humans do worse than chimps shows the problem is not a lack of knowledge, but the result of having preconceived ideas, Rosling says - ideas that are years, or sometimes decades out of date.

"What is particularly striking is that those with a university education did not do better - if anything worse - than everyone else," he says.

Rosling infers from this that most people are ignorant about the profound ways the world is changing, "often for the better".

Some "ignorance survey" questions - and the British answers:
Question: In the year 2000 the total number of children (age 0-14) in the world reached two billion. How many do UN experts estimate there will be by the year 2100?

Options		All respondents	University graduates
Source: United Nations
a. 4 billion		48%	45%
b. 3 billion		44%	48%
c. 2 billion	Correct answer	6%	6%
d. 1 billion		2%	1%

Question: What percentage of adults in the world today are literate - ie can read and write?

Options		All respondents	University graduates
Source: World Bank
a. 20% of adults		12%	15%
b. 40% of adults		38%	43%
c. 60% of adults		43%	39%
d. 80% of adults	Correct answer	8%	4%

Question: What is the life expectancy in the world as a whole today?

Options		All respondents	University graduates
Source: World Health Organization
a. 40 years		5%	7%
b. 50 years		18%	23%
c. 60 years		33%	43%
d. 70 years	Correct answer	30%	20%
e. 80 years		14%	8%

Question: In the last 30 years the proportion of the world population living in extreme poverty has…

Options		All respondents	University graduates
Source: United Nations
a. increased		58%	55%
b. remained more or less the same		33%	33%
c. decreased	Correct answer	10%	12%

Question: What percentage of total world energy generated comes from solar and wind power? Is it approximately...

Options		All respondents	University graduates
Source: International Energy Agency
a. 2% of energy	Correct (1-2%)	30%	37%
b. 5% of energy		29%	32%
c. 10% of energy		22%	18%
d. 20% energy		16%	12%
e. 40% of energy		3%	1%

Don't Panic - The Truth About Population will be broadcast on BBC Two on Thursday 7 November at 21:00 GMT (23:20 GMT in Scotland. Or watch it later on the BBC iPlayer.
Hans Rosling answered readers' questions on @BBCNewsMagazine's Twitter account.
Here is a selection of the questions and answers.
Q: Should there be a global population cap? The globe can only support a finite number of people.
A: Of course not. You would have to kill, sterilise by force or at least stop public child welfare.
Q: How will the population be divided based on age, considering the increasing age of population overall
A: It is not so much increased age, it is a higher proportion old because fewer and fewer are born.
Q: What about the environment? We already need 1.5 earths to supply our needs, with 7 billion people in the world.
A: We must obviously be much more clever in using resources, regulate with tax and promote innovations
Q: Do you think in 80 years traditional developed nations will pay people to immigrate as they won't have enough labour?
A: Yes, Vietnamese migrants are yearly picking the wild lingonberries in the Swedish forests.
Q: What is the biggest problem facing the human race today that is not being addressed?
A: I don't know, it´s probably a problem we have not yet understood how big it will soon be.
Q: How much does media coverage of female education and poverty in Indian sub-continent etc. influence our beliefs?
A: It seems the public in Europe has not yet learnt that most girls in India today go to school.
Q: Should borders be abolished to encourage the free movement of individuals?
A: In my dreams it happens, when I wake up I just hope for an even better and stronger UN.
Q: Do you think the gap between rich & poor nations will narrow as it has between rich & poor in western Europe?
A: The gap is gone. Most nations are in the middle, some richer and some poorer.
Q: Of all possible threats from exhaustion of resources which will finally cause us to see what we've already lost?
A: May be the exhaustion of resources that leads to a war that is worse than the exhaustion.
Q: At what date and at what number do you envisage that the human population will stabilise?
A: I just follow what the UN experts estimate, second part of this century, at 9-12bn.
Q: Why were your test results surprising amongst university students? Is it important for everyone to go to uni?
A: I (naively) thought university training would make you better in following what happens in the world.
Q: Given trouble our consumption is causing, surely we should panic at the prospect of a 50% increase to 11bn people?
A: Britain didn't win WWII by panicking. Let´s be bold, determined and stick to the best of values.
Q: How will the Japanese economy cope with its expected substantial decline in population over the coming decades?
A: In strange ways. In Japan sale of geriatric diapers is now bigger than baby diapers.
Q: Will the world population be able to have the quality of life that the middle class in the developed world enjoys?
A: Hopefully yes, otherwise we will get tragic conflicts in the world.
Q: We get energy from food that comes largely from the sun. Is that part of the 2% that comes from solar and wind?
A: Food and feed is not conventional part of the concept "energy production".
Q: Why is the world in better shape? Are we misinformed?
A: Most people are not updated. 50 years ago 1 in 5 children died before age 5, now only 1 in 20!
Q: Do you think the reason university graduates performed less well is due to becoming cynical while studying?
A: Truly, I do not know, but Gapminder will investigate why.
Q: What's the likely impact on mortality & population as people migrate to areas with better food & water supplies?
A: The most important migration is to cities. In poorest countries this improves health.
Q: At what point will population pressure next spark a major war?
A: It may be an underlying factor behind conflicts about land in the poorest countries.