{"id":1812,"date":"2009-09-22T00:32:52","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T05:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=1812"},"modified":"2009-09-22T00:32:52","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T05:32:52","slug":"repostwhy-the-statistics-point-toward-progress-businessweek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2009\/09\/22\/repostwhy-the-statistics-point-toward-progress-businessweek\/","title":{"rendered":"rePost::Why the Statistics Point Toward Progress – BusinessWeek"},"content":{"rendered":"

You seem quite optimistic. Why, especially since you have studied such troubling phenomena as hunger in struggling nations?<\/p>\n

Maybe because I am living my second life. When I was 30 years old, I had testicular cancer<\/a>, and I said farewell to my first life. But a full dose of radiation saved me. I’m now 61, and I’ve lived most of my life after my cancer. I celebrate that.
\nMy father was a coffee roaster, and I was the first in my family to go to school for more than six years. I studied public health<\/a> in Bangalore<\/a> in 1972, and I saw huge poverty but also very good students and flourishing industry. I’ve worked in Africa<\/a> and started university collaborations with the Middle East<\/a> and Latin America<\/a>. I’ve done field surveys in Cuba<\/a>, where I spent a full night quarrelling with Fidel Castro<\/a> on study design. So I have been able to experience many leaps and dead ends of human progress.
\nNow I look at the data and take a fact-based approach. It’s not that I’m an optimist; it’s that I know that child mortality in Egypt<\/a> has fallen to 4%. When you are knowledgeable about the actual progress of the world, you become labeled as an optimist. But I am deeply concerned by the poverty of the bottom billion.<\/strong>
\nvia Why the Statistics Point Toward Progress – BusinessWeek<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Reblog<\/a>