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Facebook versus face to face
2007-09-14 09:20:00
I?ve recently jumped onto the Face book bandwagon. Currently, my profile shows 85 friends - a dismal number compared to some others linked into this networking site. One person I know boasts an incredible 881 friends. However, Dr Will Reader, an evolutionary psychologist at Sheffield Hallam University, cautions that such huge contact lists are not an accurate indication of a person?s real social status. According to the news reports, his research into the new types of friendships being fostered online shows that:Social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace aren?t expanding people?s circles of close friends, but they are creating plenty of meaningless relationships. His study showed that even though people may have hundreds or thousands of acquaintances, their core group of close friends is still unchanged at around five people. This research on social network sites could hold important insights for social organization in general.Reader believes there are ?good evolutionar...
More About: Versus

Systematic rape in Congo: a weapon of war
2007-09-12 10:09:00
Last week, John Holmes, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, spent four days in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as part of the UN?s efforts to assess the humanitarian situation in the region.Quoted in a Washington Post article published on 9 September 2007, he described the prevalence and intensity of sexual violence against women in eastern Congo as ?almost unimaginable? and ?worse than anywhere else in the world?. ?Rape has become almost a cultural phenomenon?, Holmes noted.In DRC, sexual violence is a component of a broader environment of insecurity. The presence in the forests of eastern Congo of Hutu militias (which fled Rwanda after the 1994 genocide), along with other armed groups, has menaced the Congolese civilian population for more than 10 years. As Holmes described it:?There needs to be a political solution to the problems there, which are connected to the past, to the genocide in Rwanda.?Some figures? In DRC, accord...
More About: Weapon , Stem

Fooled by randomness?
2007-09-10 16:22:00
One interesting and useful aspect of working in a think-tank like UNIDIR is that I often get the opportunity to talk with diplomats about their work and can sometimes observe them doing it. In return, diplomats can - and do - give feedback on the sorts of ideas and suggestions we can offer as researchers on the Disarmament as Humanitarian Action (DHA) project.In multilateral diplomacy, like many other walks of life, there seems to be a bit of a generation gap or, perhaps more accurately, a "rank" gap. Younger, less-senior diplomats are fascinating to listen to in this regard, as their collective sense of the weaknesses of their institutional structures and ways of working, and problems with collective approaches is sometimes much more acute than the ambassadors. I imagine it may be because ambassadors are more sheltered from some of the less sexy drudgery of multilateral meetings and perhaps even feel they have more a stake in the traditions that characterize their "community of pra...
More About: Randomness

Arms and Non-State Groups
2007-09-06 21:18:00
The biggest threat facing the world today, according to some, is weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands of terrorists. A chilling enough scenario, granted, but how likely is it actually to transpire? And what about weapons other than WMD in the hands of non-State groups broadly defined? Shouldn't we be worried about that as well?Indeed, there is plenty to be worried about, as was highlighted this week by a UNIDIR seminar on "Preventing the Spread of Weapons to Non-State Armed Groups ." Interestingly, participants seemed to be less worried about the prospect of terrorists building or otherwise acquiring a nuclear device than they were about them getting their hands on such relatively low-tech devices as shoulder-fired guided missiles capable of downing commercial airliners.It all seemed to boil down to a (albeit inexact) calculation of risk; understood as probability multiplied by consequences. One speaker rated the probability of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons...
More About: Arms

Analyzing armed violence: the Taback - Coupland model
2007-09-05 09:24:00
Promoting human security will benefit from meaningful data. I recently attended a meeting organized by the Small Arms Survey (SAS) in Geneva, Switzerland, on the potential of using the Taback-Coupland model for human security mapping.Nathan Taback, a Canadian statistician, and Robin Coupland, an advisor on armed violence at the International Committee of the Red Cross and former field surgeon, have developed a model that converts media reports into data in order to document and analyze the effects of armed violence.The model is constructed around four parameters, which the researchers assume to be the ?risk factors? for the effects of armed violence. It includes the nature of the weapon, the number of weapons used, the way the weapon is used, and the victim?s vulnerability. Coupland and Taback describe their model in a chapter of our third volume of research (?Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations?).The idea is that, by extracting signifi...
More About: Model , Violence , Viol , Armed , Anal

Landmines: Disarm!
2007-09-03 16:29:00
Anti-personnel mines continue to kill and maim people, mostly civilians, around the world. Their effects are often worst in the poorest and most vulnerable communities that are trying to recover from conflict.In 1997, a new international treaty was negotiated to ban anti-personnel mines, clear contaminated land, destroy mine stockpiles and help the victims. Later this month a conference in Oslo will commemorate 10 years of the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, and Disarmament Insight will report from there on its highlights.But the job isn't done yet. It's easy in all of the hullaballoo and feel good vibe to overlook the real human costs of anti-personnel mines. A powerful reminder of the real life challenges of anti-personnel mines is the excellent independent film 'Disarm', co-produced by Mary Wareham, a contributor to our second volume, Disarmament as Humanitarian Action: From Perspective to Practice, and the film-maker Brian Liu.I first saw 'Disarm' on the margins of ...
More About: Sarm

BWC: 2007 Meeting of Experts
2007-08-31 09:52:00
If you were in the Palais des Nations last Friday morning, you might have heard applause emanating from one of the conference chambers. That was the end of the 2007 Meeting of Experts of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). In comparison to other events in the Palais like the Human Rights Council, it was a low-key gathering. It is, however, the latest chapter in the reinvigoration of multilateral efforts to strengthen the norms against poisoning and deliberate spreading of disease.One of the highlights of the meeting was the official launch of the new Implementation Support Unit (ISU) for the BWC. The ISU has three staff. As the ISU?s size suggests, it isn?t designed to solve the problem of biological weapons by itself. Rather, it was created to help states help themselves. They decided not to contain resources dedicated to addressing these weapons in a single monolithic institution but to keep them in the hands of governments and other international organizations, where most of...
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Understanding psychological biases to improve decision-making
2007-08-29 10:05:00
Many of us have used the terms ?hawk? and ?dove? to refer to the different ways politicians view the world. Those with hawkish tendencies are supposed to be more likely to prefer to use military force against a perceived threat and to steer clear of offering concessions to adversaries. Doves, on the other hand, prefer to avoid using force in favor of finding non-violent solutions, if possible. Some psychology research suggests that humans may be predisposed to favor hawkish arguments because of our susceptibility to certain biases. In their article ?Why Hawks Win,? Daniel Kahneman and Jonathan Renshon discussed some of these biases in an effort to explain the observed human tendency to prefer conflict over concession. Kahneman and Renshon argue that the overconfidence bias - the same bias that leads about 80% of all drivers to believe their driving skills are above average - ?makes politicians and generals receptive to advisors who offer highly favorable estimates of the outcomes ...
More About: Decision , Psychological , Improve , Decision-Making , Stand

Cluster munitions: the stigma grows
2007-08-27 09:36:00
The Sunday Observer of 19 August ran a story that some leading British financial institutions have told it "they are about to withdraw hundreds of millions of pounds from firms linked to the manufacture of controversial cluster bombs. The move will be seen as a major breakthrough for campaigners such as Handicap International, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Human Rights Watch."Let's also remember the Cluster Munition Coalition. All of the Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) mentioned above belong to that international network of campaigners, which has played an active role over the last few years in the deliberations of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in Geneva and especially in the international "Oslo Process" that emerged from February this year.The Observer's story is further indirect evidence that, increasingly, cluster munitions are seen as a weapon with unacceptable humanitarian consequences by European publics. Investors see that as ...
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A More Responsible Trade in Guns
2007-08-23 17:15:00
Next week, over 100 States will gather in Geneva to see if they can come any closer to agreeing on a set of common standards that they should all apply when deciding whether or not to export guns to other countries. The goal is to stop so many guns from finding their way into regions, countries and hands where they are likely to be used to abuse human rights, violate the laws of war or otherwise kill or intimidate civilians (for some background on this, see my posting of 18 April 2007). This should be no ordinary multilateral conference on the small arms trade. For starters, it is taking place outside of formal UN frameworks. The venue is not the UN office in Geneva, where most official UN business takes place, but the international conference centre across the street. And, most radically of all, the wearing of ties has been officially discouraged, an unheard of deviation from standard UN practice! To understand the context of this meeting, we need to transport ourselves back t...
More About: Guns , Canada , Trade

Myths about Climate Change and Conflict?
2007-08-22 11:49:00
Last week, I came across an article published on Foreign Policy magazine?s website entitled ?The New Myth About Climate Change ? by Idean Salehyan, an assistant professor of political science at the University of North Texas.According to the author, the thesis that global warming increases the probability of conflict ? a proposition supported by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and even discussed in the United Nations Security Council as we reported on May 3rd 2007 ? is a ?myth?. Salehyan develops his argument around three points:1. ?there is little systemic empirical evidence that resource scarcity and changing environmental conditions lead to conflict?Global warming occurs over a long period of time, and it is true that its effects have largely been subtle. The emerging scientific consensus, however, is that the most important effects of global warming are still to come (see reports by IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).Is global warming likely to in...
More About: Myths , Conflict

Dark forces in the Wiki, I sense
2007-08-20 09:01:00
In between many of the serious issues we try to follow on the Disarmament Insight blog, a news story popped up last week from Reuters that begged for comment.It seems that people using computers traced to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been editing entries in the online encyclopedia Wiki pedia. This was apparently discovered with a piece of software developed by the Sante Fe Institute called WikiScanner.A wiki is a web site that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by users. It's said to owe its origins to computer programmer Ward Cunningham, from the Hawaiian "wiki-wiki", which means "quick-quick". Wikipedia is perhaps the best known, largest and most popular wiki by number of those who consult it.Reuters reported that, using WikiScanner, Wired magazine compiled a massive list of CIA and FBI edited Wikipedia entries. Apparently CIA and FBI computers were deployed to edit topics including the Iraq War and ...
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What can our ancestors teach us about building trust?
2007-08-17 08:49:00
The answer is an extraordinary amount based on what I heard at a fascinating workshop held on 25 May on ?Human Security, Human Nature, and Trust -Building in Negotiations?, as part of the Disarmament Insight initiative. Their workshop brought together disarmament diplomats from Missions in Geneva, officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and UN with considerable experience of disarmament negotiations, and researchers specialising in trust issues.The challenge posed for multilateral practitioners in the international security field attending the workshop was to think about how the information presented to them relates to their interactions, and to what extent their current community of practice leverages or impedes trust-building (something which John Borrie described at the meeting as ?cognitive ergonomics?. Hear his podcast here.) Several speakers were invited to address the seminar, including Robin Coupland, the ICRC?s adviser on armed violence and the eff...
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A ?Green Seal? for arms control?
2007-08-15 12:16:00
What do environmentalists know that the peace and security community doesn?t? Well, for one thing how to use the business?s community marketing machinery to support their goals. One of the biggest trends in marketing in recent years is ?green marketing? in which businesses lay claim to environmental bona fides as a means of encouraging affluent consumers to purchase their product or not shy away from doing so. A soymilk manufacturer sponsors a ?Green Caps for Green Energy? program, a bottled water distributor supports global clean water efforts, a travel agency supports sustainable development projects. And then there?s all the companies from British Petroleum to Starbucks that seek to shrink the environmental footprint that they leave. Outside the environmental field, there?s all sorts of similar efforts: Virgin Mobile is tying its sales effort to efforts to get homeless young people off the streets; Microsoft is willing to donate money to a variety of causes from the National AIDS...
More About: Seal , Arms , Control

Last Chance for the Conference on Disarmament?
2007-08-13 05:14:00
The Conference on Disarmament -- "the world's sole multilateral disarmament negotiating forum" as its 65 member States frequently remind us -- has featured either directly or tangentially in a number of postings on this blog (see in particular August 8 and March 28). And with good reason. In existence since 1983, the CD has negotiated such landmark agreements as the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Its antecedents, which date back to the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament of 1959-60, gave us the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Environmental Modification Convention. Despite its impressive track record, however, the CD has not been able to produce a multilateral disarmament treaty since finishing its work on the CTBT in 1996. This more than decade-long deadlock has its roots in disagreements on which issues to deal with next. There is broad agreement among CD member States that a treat...
More About: Chance , Ferenc

New feature: print or save Disarmament Insight postings
2007-08-10 10:50:00
As you?ve probably noticed, we have just included a new option that allows visitors to save Disarmament Insight blog postings in PDF format.It is now possible to have a printer-friendly version of all or just one of the postings on the site.1) To print all postings displayed on the main page:Simply click the button "Save page as PDF".2) To print a single post: Click on the post?s title (this will open a page displaying only this post); Click the button ?Save page as PDF?.Hope you?ll find this useful.Aurélia Merçay
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The Power of Priming
2007-08-08 15:31:00
The human subconscious, it turns out, is more active than we think. And it can be primed in remarkable ways by seemingly mundane objects, smells and sounds, as a recent New York Times article outlined.The article reported, for instance, one recent study by Yale psychologists, which revealed that college students handed either a cup of hot or iced coffee on the way to class were influenced by the temperature of the beverage: when later asked to judge a person from a written description, those handed iced coffee rated them ?much colder, less social and more selfish? than those handed hot coffee. In another study, students were asked to play an investment game with an unseen player. The students were placed at either a long table with a black briefcase and leather folder or a backpack left at the end of the table. The results revealed that students played differently when the briefcase and folder as opposed to the backpack were on the table. According to the researchers, the briefcase ...
More About: Power , United Nations , Conference on Disarmament , Ming , Rimi

0800-HOW-IS-MY-DIPLOMACY? Technology and humanitarian action
2007-08-06 11:47:00
Regular readers of the Disarmament Insight blog will have gathered that, among many things, we're interested in the impacts of technology on international decision-making. Patricia Lewis, for instance, has offered some of her personal observations about the changes mobile phones and Blackberries have wrought on interactions in multilateral meetings she's attended (See "Zapped! Mobile technology in the conference chamber").There seems little doubt that continued improvements to wireless communications have radical implications for the coordination of international activities at many different levels.For instance, The Economist newspaper ran a story on 26 July entitled "Flood, Famine and Mobile Phones". In it, the Economist argued that technology is transforming humanitarian relief - and shifting the balance of power between donors and recipients.It all sounds great. But the Economist conceded that - beyond anecdotal evidence - there isn't a definitive verdict yet on how much of a ...
More About: Technology , Action , Diplomacy , Humanitarian , Anita

"Cognitive Ergonomics"?
2007-08-03 14:41:00
In 10 minutes of off-the-cuff concluding remarks from our 25 May Disarmament Insight symposium on ?Human Security, Human Nature and Trust-building in Negotiations?, John Borrie talked about what he calls ?cognitive ergonomics? and the relevance of the concept in thinking about the structures and procedures in multilateral negotiations. Not to mention Jimi Hendrix, the Who and Formula One and World Rally Car racing ...You can hear the podcast by clicking here.Cognitive ergonomics is also discussed in his introduction to the Disarmament as Humanitarian Action project's third volume of work, which you can access by clicking on the book with the pink cover at left.Enjoy!
More About: Ergonomics , Ergonomic

Fun and Games
2007-07-31 15:58:00
The New York Times has just published an interesting profile of Harvard scientist, Professor Martin Nowak, director of the university's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Nowak is a gamer - that is he takes informal ideas and builds them into versatile mathematical models in fields as diverse as economics and cancer biology.What's this got to do with human security or disarmament diplomacy? For some time, we on the DHA project have been thinking about what insights from the natural and behavioural sciences could do for work in these areas. We explored some of these in a recent book we published, entitled "Thinking Outside the Box in Multilateral Disarmament and Arms Control Negotiations" (click on the pink book at left to explore its contents).The underlying theme in Nowak's many projects is that of cooperation, "one of the most puzzling yet fundamental features of life".It's also a particular source of fascination for me because international relations are essentially problems ...
More About: Games , Fun and Games , Ames

AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Plant Hundreds of Mines in Helmand Province
2007-07-30 10:50:00
Provincial officials say Taliban insurgents have planted hundreds of anti-personnel mines in several districts of Helmand in the last six months.Engaged in long battles with Afghan security forces backed by NATO-led international troops, Taliban fighters have turned to landmines to block entry to areas where they operate, said Nabijan Molakhiel, a former police chief and a military expert."This is a quote from a news report by IRIN - the Integrated Regional Information Networks. Click here to read the complete report.Aurélia Merçay
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Does Terrorism Work?
2007-07-27 09:32:00
Over the last few months, I?ve been researching cognitive biases and how they influence our decision-making. I looked at the confirmation bias, which is the human tendency to seek out and process information that confirms our preexisting beliefs. I also examined the self-serving attributional bias; when we blame unfavorable outcomes on external causes but take credit for positive ones. A recent article I read talked about a different bias: correspondent inference theory.Correspondent inference theory is the human tendency ?to infer the motives ? and also the disposition ? of someone who performs an action based on the effects of his actions, and not on external or situational factors.? Paying attention to what those around you are doing makes ?evolutionary sense? ? most of the time, it pays to infer as quickly as possible the intentions of those around you. But it doesn?t work all the time in building an accurate picture of what?s going on.A recent paper, ?Why Terrorism Does Not Wor...
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New Podcast ? Warring instincts: what we can learn from behavioural economi
2007-07-24 08:43:00
On 25 May we held our latest Disarmament Insight symposium with disarmament practitioners including diplomats, international civil servants, representatives of civil society groups and researchers, entitled ?Human security, human nature and trust-building in negotiations?.We?re pleased to unveil the latest free podcast we?ve prepared from the fascinating presentations at that event. Click here to hear or download the second part of a talk by the economist and author of The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Econ omic Life, Professor Paul Seabright.Professor Seabright's talk investigated "how have human beings tamed our warring instincts?"In the first podcast of two encapsulating his talk, Professor Seabright observed that, at a time when there's mounting concern about violence in modern society, rates of violent death are very much lower now than they were in the past, which he noted may come as a surprise to many.In this second 30 minute podcast, "Warring Instincts: What ...
More About: Podcast , Learn , Ural

Al-Qaeda?s Internet
2007-07-20 08:44:00
In November 2001, Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist reporting from Afghanistan, watched ?every second al-Qaeda member carrying a laptop computer along with a Kalashnikov? as they prepared to flee American bombing.These are the first lines of an article I recently read in ?Le Temps?, a Swiss newspaper, describing the growing role the Intern et allegedly plays in al-Qaeda?s terrorist activities.Terrorist organizations, and Al-Qaeda in particular, have not been caught on the hop by the fast development of recent technology. Quite the opposite: terrorist presence on the Internet is becoming ever more pervasive and sophisticated (last figures estimate the number of sensitive websites to 5?000).As described in a report by Gabriel Weimann, the Internet is in many ways the ?ideal arena? for terrorist activities. Evident advantages include its ease of access, anonymity, little or no regulation and the possibility of communicating to a vast potential audience. Moreover, the volatility of websi...
More About: Al Qaeda

Small arms: not a happy birthday
2007-07-17 09:51:00
Monday?s International Herald Tribune ran a front-page story about the 60th birthday this year of the ubiquitous Kalashnikov assault rifle:?In cash-hungry Russia, Kalashnikov is now an informal brand. And as purchases of Kalashnikov rifles and their derivatives continue on foreign markets, Russian arms manufacturers and exporters worry not about ideology and world dominance, but over sales opportunities lost.?To people in many societies around the world suffering the effects of the wide availability of small arms and light weapons - the Kalashnikov is its sinister poster-child - such concerns must seems a little strange, if not cynical.The Kalashnikov first emerged with the most patriotic of intentions after Mikhail Kalashnikov, a Soviet tank commander, was wounded in combat in late 1941. While recovering in hospital he began sketching gun designs and then joined a depot workshop of the Moscow Aviation Institute. In 1947 Kalashnikov designed the AK-47 and two years later it became t...
More About: Small , Happy , Birthday , Arms , Happy Birthday

New podcast: What do we know about levels of human violence?
2007-07-13 12:04:00
Early this year we set up the Disarmament Insight initiative with support from our funders, the governments of Norway and the Netherlands, to help multilateral practitioners think differently about human security, disarmament and arms control.On 25 May, as part of that work, we held a symposium near Geneva with a group of disarmament practitioners including diplomats, international civil servants, representatives of civil society groups and researchers on 'Human security, human nature and trust-building in negotiations'.Among our speakers was Frans de Waal, one of the world's foremost authorities on ape behaviour. On the face of it, this might seem a bit odd. What could primatology offer disarmament negotiators? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and you can download Professor de Waal's talk as a podcast by clicking on this link. It has blown a lot of minds here in Geneva and elsewhere, judging from the feedback we've been getting from diplomats and others.We're now pleased t...
More About: Podcast , Violence , Viol

Cognitive Dissonance: Don?t Mention the War?
2007-07-11 12:46:00
The way we perceive our world can have a significant impact on our decision-making and the way we interact with others. A recent Washington Post article reported on a psychological experiment carried out by Roy Baumeister that revealed one way our perceptions can influence how we view others.In the experiment, Baumeister asked participants to describe a situation in which they hurt someone else and a situation when they were personally hurt. They were also asked to describe how much pain these incidents caused another (or caused them) and whether their unkindness (or the unkindness directed at them) was justified. Come time to find out, when participants were on the receiving end of an unkind act (like a betrayal or a lie), they felt the act was ?inexplicable, senseless and immoral? and that the pain caused by the act lasted a long time. (Surprise, surprise.) When these same participants were asked about the time they hurt someone else, however, they viewed their actions as ?justifi...
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Is there a Geneva / New York divide?
2007-07-08 16:30:00
Bob Dylan played a sold-out concert in Geneva recently, mixing songs from his latest album, "Modern Times," with some of his old classics, including "Like a Rolling Stone," which contains the following cryptic lyrics:"You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat / who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat..."Nobody quite knows what this means, and Bob isn't giving any clues. I prefer a straightforward interpretation: The female subject of the song riding through Manhattan on a Harley Davidson driven by, well, a diplomat; possibly from South-East Asia (which could explain the Siamese cat reference).All of this set me to thinking about the very different experiences that diplomats dealing with disarmament and arms control must have in Geneva and in New York - apart, that is, from featuring or not in Bob Dylan songs.On one level, diplomats posted to Geneva and those posted to New York are supposed to be doing the same thing: defending their national interests in the face of...
More About: United Nations , There

Zapped! Mobile technology in the conference chamber
2007-07-04 12:13:00
In the past, in a negotiating conference room, one could always tell when something was afoot. Delegates would be moving around the room ? often with unseemly speed - clutching sheaves of draft text. Conclaves of ambassadors would huddle in a corner to sweat out the immediate joint response to a smart proposal from another delegation or group. Junior members would be sprinting to the photocopiers and nicotine addicts would be pacing around outside together conjuring up fixes ? I even know of diplomats who took up smoking so as to be part of the smoke-filled rooms that always seemed to be where the creative ambassadors and others produced the ground-breaking work.Now mobile technology is changing all that. Calls and text messages via phones or Blackberries rebound around the conference room. Vibrating handsets have given a whole new meaning to the ?buzz? in a room. Jokes are zapped through ? although how these work in an intercultural environment makes me wonder about the wisdom of t...
More About: Technology , Mobile , Mobi , Amber , Ferenc

Gapminder or ?Making sense of the world by having fun with statistics"
2007-07-03 08:55:00
Gapminder or ?Making sense of the world by having fun with statistics"?Fun? and ?statistics? aren?t words that normally fit together. Endless unreadable charts, incomprehensible graphs (what does x stand for, again?...), average, mean, median, standard deviation?Yes, statistics can certainly be boring. However, as illustrated by Gapminder, a non-profit dedicated to communicating and disseminating global-development statistics, this isn?t necessarily the case.Hans Rosling, one of Gapminder?s cofounders, is a Swedish medical doctor and public health researcher. While teaching international health at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Rosling realized that the traditional way of presenting statistics was an obstacle to his students? understanding of the health and economic trends shaping the world. So, helped by his son Ola, he developed a short animated movie illustrating the progress of states ? moving bubbles, whose size represents population ? along both health and economic in...
More About: Sense , World , Statistics , The World , Stat