More or Less: Behind the Stats
960 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 740 ratingsTim Harford and the More or Less team try to make sense of the statistics which surround us. From BBC Radio 4
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Episodes
WS More or Less: Does San Francisco have more rough sleepers than Britain?
October 07, 2019 15:00 - 8 minutes - 8.22 MBAre the shocking statistics true? and how do you count people who don't wish to be found?
New hospitals promised, aid to Ukraine, and bacon sandwiches
October 04, 2019 16:00 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBDissecting the government’s hospitals announcement and President Trump’s Ukraine claims.
WS More or Less: Who fought in World War 1?
September 30, 2019 15:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBWere a third of those that fought for Britain in WW1 black or Asian?
Austerity Deaths, C-Sections and being struck by lightning
September 27, 2019 17:00 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBHas Austerity caused 120 thousand deaths in the UK and does God hate men?
WS More or Less: Peaty v. Bolt: Which is the greatest world record?
September 23, 2019 15:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBUsing statistics to compare world records in athletics and swimming.
Dementia, inflation and shark deaths
September 20, 2019 16:00 - 24 minutes - 22.8 MBHealth risks for Presidential hopefuls, falling inflation, shark deaths and salary claims
WS More or Less: Cape Town murders
September 16, 2019 13:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBAre eight people a day murdered in Cape Town and is that number unusually high?
Maternal deaths, taxi driver earnings and statistical pop music
September 13, 2019 16:07 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBAre black women five times more likely to die in childbirth? Plus making pop music.
WS More or Less: Deforestation in Brazil
September 09, 2019 15:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBHas it increased significantly since President Bolsonaro took office in January?
Climate deaths, austerity and pet food
September 06, 2019 15:30 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBChallenging the idea of six billion deaths due to climate change; plus what pets eat.
WS More or Less: Amazon forest fires
September 02, 2019 13:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBAre they really 85 percent worse than last year?
Amazon fires, state pension and American burgers
August 30, 2019 16:46 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBAre forest fires in Brazil the worst in recent times? What is the state pension worth?
WS More or Less: Ethiopia’s 350m trees in a day
August 26, 2019 15:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBWere millions of trees planted in just one day in Ethiopia?
Exam grades, Chernobyl and Ethiopian trees
August 23, 2019 17:11 - 24 minutes - 22.6 MBWas your A Level grade correct? Plus were 350m trees planted in one day in Ethiopia?
Mice and mind blowing maths
August 16, 2019 15:00 - 9 minutes - 8.51 MBRe-inserting a caveat and discussing a really cool numbers trick.
Immigrant Crime Rate in the US
August 09, 2019 15:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBDo immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans in the United States?
The spread of fact-checking in Africa
August 02, 2019 15:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBWith misinformation so easy to spread, how can it be stopped or challenged?
Pregnancy prohibitions – the evidence
July 26, 2019 17:00 - 8 minutes - 8.19 MBTaking a statistical look at what expectant mothers should avoid.
Missing women from drug trials
July 19, 2019 19:00 - 9 minutes - 8.5 MBHow medical testing on just men causes problems.
Zimbabwe’s economy: Are sanctions to blame?
July 19, 2019 14:31 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBWe look at politicians’ claims that sanctions are to blame for Zimbabwe’s difficulties.
Two World Cups: Football and Cricket
July 05, 2019 15:04 - 8 minutes - 8.22 MBOn this week’s More or Less, Ruth Alexander looks at the numbers involved with the two world cups that are going on at the moment. Are more men than women watching the Women’s World Cup and how accurate is the Cricket World Cup rule of thumb that suggests if you double the score after 30 overs you get a good estimate of the final innings total? Producer: Richard Vadon Image: Cricket World Cup Trophy 2019 Credit: Getty Images/ Gareth Copley-IDI
Is nuclear power actually safer than you think?
June 28, 2019 16:00 - 9 minutes - 8.97 MBWe questioned the death count of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in last week’s More or Less podcast. In the end, Professor Jim Smith of Portsmouth University came up with an estimate of 15,000 deaths. But we wondered how deadly nuclear power is overall when compared to other energy sources? Dr Hannah Ritchie of the University of Oxford joins Charlotte McDonald to explore. Image:Chernobyl nuclear plant, October 1st 1986 Credit: Getty Images
Questioning the Chernobyl disaster death count
June 21, 2019 16:02 - 15 minutes - 14.1 MBThe recent TV miniseries ‘Chernobyl’ has stirred up debate online about the accuracy of its portrayal of the explosion at a nuclear power plant in the former Soviet state of Ukraine. We fact-check the programme and try and explain why it so hard to say how many people will die because of the Chernobyl disaster. Image: Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster. Credit: Getty Images
WS More or Less: Dealing with the Numbers of Cancer
June 14, 2019 16:00 - 9 minutes - 8.39 MBHow one woman used statistics to help cope with cancer.
WS More or Less: The things we fail to see
June 10, 2019 13:00 - 9 minutes - 8.33 MBThe hidden influences that a make a big difference to the way the world works.
Are married women flipping miserable?
June 07, 2019 16:59 - 23 minutes - 21.6 MBMeasuring happiness, university access in Scotland, plus will one in two get cancer?
WS More or Less: Volcanoes versus humans
June 03, 2019 13:00 - 9 minutes - 8.32 MBDoes Mount Etna produce more carbon emissions than humans? We check the numbers.
Hay Festival Special
May 31, 2019 16:21 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBWhat does it mean to say that the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world?
WS More or Less: Florence Nightingale – recognising the nurse statistician
May 27, 2019 13:00 - 10 minutes - 10.1 MBHow collecting data about the dead led the famous nurse to promote better sanitation.
Eurovision and fact-checking Naomi Wolf
May 24, 2019 16:00 - 24 minutes - 22 MBThe stats behind making a successful song, plus misunderstanding Victorian court records.
Making music out of Money
May 20, 2019 13:00 - 9 minutes - 8.32 MBData visualisation is all the rage, but where does that leave the old-fashioned values of audio? Some data visualisation experts are starting to explore the benefits of turning pictures into sound. Financial Times journalist Alan Smith plays his musical interpretation of a chart depicting the yield-curve of American bonds. Image: Human heart attack, illustration Credit: Science Photo Library
Heart deaths, Organised crime and Gender data gaps
May 17, 2019 16:44 - 27 minutes - 25.6 MBAre deaths from heart disease on the rise? This week the British Heart Foundation had us all stopping mid-biscuit with the news that the number of under 75s dying from cardiovascular disease is going up for the first time in half a century. It sounds like bad news – but is it? Does Huawei contribute £1.7billion to the UK economy? People were sceptical that the Chinese telecom company could contribute such a large amount to the UK economy. We take a deeper look at the number and discuss wh...
Sex Every Seven Seconds
May 13, 2019 08:00 - 15 minutes - 13.8 MBWe revisit some classic topics from past years. We hear which statistics about sex you should trust, and which are less robust. Do men think about sex every seven seconds? Plus, did the arrival of royal baby Princess Charlotte really contribute to the British economy?
Sex, coal, missing people and mice
May 10, 2019 17:14 - 27 minutes - 25.3 MBSex Recession This week it was reported that British people are having less sex than they used to. Similar statistics are cropping up elsewhere in the world too. But one US stat seemed particularly stark: the number of young men having no sex at all in the past year has tripled in a decade. But is it true? No coal power for a week There were many reports in the newspapers this week saying the UK has set a new record for the number of consecutive days generating energy without burning any c...
Avengers - Should we reverse the snap?
May 06, 2019 13:00 - 10 minutes - 9.43 MB*Spoiler-free for Avengers: Endgame* At the end of Avengers: Infinity War film the villain, Thanos, snapped his fingers in the magical infinity gauntlet and disintegrated half of all life across the universe. The Avengers want to reverse the snap but would it better for mankind to live in a world with a population of less than 4 billion? Tim Harford investigates the economics of Thanos with anthropologist Professor Sharon DeWitte and fictionomics blogger Zachary Feinstein PHD. Image: The A...
Nurses, flatmates and cats
May 03, 2019 16:19 - 23 minutes - 21.7 MBNurse suicide rates There were some worrying figures in the news this week about the number of nurses in England and Wales who died by suicide over the last seven years. We try to work out what the numbers are really telling us. Are 27 million birds killed a year by cats? Newspapers reported this week that 27 million birds are killed by cats each year. We find out how this number - which might not really be "news" - was calculated. How rare are house shares? A listener got in touch to ...
Bernie Sanders and the cost of having a baby
April 29, 2019 13:00 - 9 minutes - 8.73 MBBernie Sanders, a Senator in the United States and one of the front-runners in the campaign to be the Democratic presidential candidate, said on Twitter that it costs $12,000 to have a baby in his country. He compared that figure to Finland, where he said it costs $60. In this edition of More or Less, Tim Harford looks at whether Sanders has got his figures right. With Carol Sakala of US organisation Childbirth Connection and Mika Gissler of the National Institute for Health and Welfare, Fin...
Hottest Easter, Insects, Scottish villages
April 26, 2019 17:28 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBWas it a surprise that Easter Monday was so hot? A heatwave struck the UK over Easter – and in fact Easter Monday was declared the hottest on record in the UK. But listeners asked - is it that surprising that it was the warmest when the date fell so late in April? We crunch the numbers supplied by the Met Office. Insectageddon Insects live all around us and if a recent scientific review is anything to go by, then they are on the path to extinction. The analysis found that more than 40% of...
The economic impact of mega sporting events
April 19, 2019 23:05 - 8 minutes - 8.22 MBThe Olympic Games and the football World Cup, two of the biggest events in the world which are each hosted every four years, are big business. And it costs a lot of money to host them, and a lot of the money comes from public funds. In this week’s edition of More or Less, we’ll be finding out – after all the sporting activities are over – how realistic were those economic predictions? Producer: Darin Graham Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Editor: Richard Vadon Picture Credit: Fang Guangming/So...
Where is Scotland’s highest village?
April 15, 2019 13:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBA battle is brewing in the Southern Scottish uplands between two rival villages. How can statistics help determine which village should take the crown? Wanlockhead and Leadhills both lay claim to the title of Scotland’s highest village but there can only be one winner. More or Less attempts to settle the age old dispute once and for all. Presenter: Phoebe Keane Picture: A village in the Southern Scottish uplands. Credit: Jan Halfpenny
Rounding up the weed killer cancer conundrum
April 08, 2019 13:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBA recent scientific review claims the weed killer glyphosate raises the risk of developing the cancer non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41 percent. But deciding what causes cancer can be complicated and there are lots of people and organisations on different sides arguing for against this. So in this edition of More or Less, we look at the disagreements and how the authors of the review came up with the results. With cancer epidemiologist Dr Geoffrey Kabat, Toxicologist Dr Luoping Zhang and statistici...
Chess cheats and the GOAT
April 02, 2019 13:34 - 10 minutes - 9.22 MBWho is the greatest chess player in history? And what does the answer have to do with a story of a chess cheating school from Texas? In this week’s More or Less, the BBC’s numbers programme, David Edmonds finds out what a statistical analysis of chess moves can teach us about this ancient board game. Presenter: David Edmonds Producer: Darin Graham Image: A Chess Board Credit: Getty Images
Is Mansa Musa the richest person of all time?
March 25, 2019 14:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBMansa Musa, the 14th century Mali king, has nothing on Jeff Bezos - read one recent news report. Musa set off on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in the 1300s and it’s said he left with a caravan of 60,000 people. Among them were soldiers, entertainers, merchants and slaves. A train of camels followed, each carrying gold. In recent reports, he has been described as the richest person that ever lived. He has been compared to some of the wealthiest people alive today. But how can we know the value...
Day light saving time and heart attacks
March 18, 2019 14:00 - 8 minutes - 8.21 MBDoes the sudden loss of an hour of sleep raise the risk of having a heart attack?
The gender gap in tech
March 09, 2019 10:00 - 9 minutes - 8.29 MBAre women really less likely than men to be hired for jobs in tech just because of their sex? A study claims that sexism in the recruitment process is holding women back from entering the tech sector. But the study is not all it seems. There are much better statistics that can help explain why fewer women than men work in tech in the USA and lessons to be learned from India, where there is a much smaller gender gap in the tech sector. Presenter: Phoebe Keane Photo: An engineer looking at...
Insectageddon
March 04, 2019 10:55 - 12 minutes - 11.3 MBInsects live all around us and if a recent scientific review is anything to go by, then they are on the path to extinction. The analysis found that more than 40 percent of insect species are decreasing and that a decline rate of 2.5 percent a year suggests they could disappear in one hundred years. And as some headlines in February warned of the catastrophic collapse of nature, some More or Less listeners questioned the findings. Is insect life really in trouble? Presenter: Ruth Alexander ...
How To Make Your Art Work More Valuable
February 22, 2019 15:30 - 9 minutes - 8.45 MBDie, sell on a sunny day, place your work a third of the way through the auction….There are some surprising factors that can affect the price of an art work. Here are six top tips on how to get the best price for your art or, for art buyers, how to make a big return on your investment. Presenter: Dave Edmonds Producer: Darin Graham Editor: Richard Vadon Picture Credit: BBC
WS More or Less: When maths mistakes really matter
February 18, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 8.39 MBTim Harford talks to Matt Parker on how simple maths mistakes can cause big problems.
Climate Change, Victorian Diseases, Alcohol
February 15, 2019 17:59 - 23 minutes - 21.1 MBTim Harford on climate change, Victorian diseases, maths mistakes and alcohol consumption
WS More or Less: From the archives: Groundhogs and Kings
February 12, 2019 10:00 - 18 minutes - 17 MBWho can better forecast the weather – meteorologists or a rodent? What percentage of the English public are related to King Edward the III, and is malnutrition really on the rise in the UK? Sit back, relax and enjoy some of the good stuff from the More or Less archives.