More or Less: Behind the Stats Podcast
Tim Harford and the More or Less team try to make sense of the statistics which surround us. From 大象传媒 Radio 4
Episodes to download
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How we shook the world of very large numbers
Sat 14 Jan 2023
How an edition of More or Less influenced the naming of enormous numbers
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A&E delays and deaths, religious identity in N Ireland and naming the monster numbers
Wed 11 Jan 2023
How many people may be dying because of treatment delays in the NHS?
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Can China's data on covid deaths be trusted?
Sat 7 Jan 2023
Is China under-reporting data on Covid related deaths?
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Irish pubs - a global numbers game
Sat 31 Dec 2022
Are there more Irish pubs in Ireland than in all other countries combined?
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Numbers of the Year 2022
Christmas Eve 2022
Tim Harford and guests on the numbers that help tell the big stories of the year.
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Qatar World Cup: the pressure of penalties
Sat 17 Dec 2022
We analyse World Cup penalty data to ask what boosts the chance of scoring from the spot
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Why are data so important in determining how we live?
Sat 10 Dec 2022
How good policies depend on the availability of reliable statistics
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The World Cup: how many migrant workers have died?
Sat 3 Dec 2022
Examining the wildly varying estimates of deaths in the run-up to the tournament in Qatar
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When do food shortages become a famine?
Sat 26 Nov 2022
With Somalia in crisis, we ask how data is used to officially declare a famine
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A $220 billion World Cup?
Sat 19 Nov 2022
Has hosting the FIFA football World Cup really cost Qatar $220bn?
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Bonus Episode: Understand the Economy
Mon 14 Nov 2022
Tim Harford brings you the first episode of his new podcast and explains inflation
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Improving the numbers in the news
Sat 12 Nov 2022
Tim Harford discusses the role statistics should play in the reporting of the news
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Lula鈥檚 鈥渮ero deforestation鈥� plan for the Amazon
Sat 5 Nov 2022
How much of the rainforest has been lost? And can Brazil鈥檚 new president save it?
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Can China鈥檚 GDP data be trusted?
Sat 29 Oct 2022
Are China鈥檚 most recent figures for economic growth wrong?
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Do half of new books really sell fewer than twelve copies?
Sat 22 Oct 2022
We look into a claim that 50% of new books in the US sell just a handful of copies.
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Ben Bernanke and the magic of banking
Sat 15 Oct 2022
Tim Harford explains the work of this year鈥檚 Nobel Economics Prize winners
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Catching Chess Cheats with Data
Sat 8 Oct 2022
A cheating scandal is rocking the world of chess - and data is at its heart
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Teens and antidepressants, stamp duty savings and earthquake probabilities
Fri 7 Oct 2022
We debunk a claim that a third of British teenagers have been prescribed antidepressants
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NASA鈥檚 asteroid collision: how many asteroids are really out there?
Sat 1 Oct 2022
As NASA rams an asteroid to try and alter its course, how many are yet to be discovered?
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Falling pound, the Queen鈥檚 funeral and is 0.5 on the Richter scale a big number?
Wed 28 Sep 2022
How worried should we be about the steep falls in the pound?
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Ukraine鈥檚 progress in numbers
Sat 24 Sep 2022
We ask how much progress Ukraine has really made in recapturing territory from Russia.
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Ukraine offensive, weak pound & how much do women really exercise
Thu 22 Sep 2022
We ask how much progress Ukraine has really made in recapturing territory from Russia
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How bad is fashion for the environment?
Sat 17 Sep 2022
Does fashion really account for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions?
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Energy crisis plan, imperial measures survey, gardens v national parks
Wed 14 Sep 2022
How much will the UK government鈥檚 plan to limit energy price rises end up costing?
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Is a third of Pakistan really under water?
Sat 10 Sep 2022
We investigate a widely reported claim as Pakistan deals with devastating flooding
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Pakistan flooding, UK power prices and Boris鈥檚 broadband claim
Wed 7 Sep 2022
The scale of the disaster is huge, but is a third of Pakistan really under water?
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Can we use maths to beat the robots?
Sat 3 Sep 2022
Why improving how we teach and think about maths could help us keep an edge over machines
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Energy prices, excess deaths and the race to count to 200
Wed 31 Aug 2022
Is there an easy way to cut soaring energy bills?
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Kenya鈥檚 Election Rounding Error
Sat 27 Aug 2022
Official figures didn鈥檛 add up - but due to rounding, not fraud.
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The numbers behind 鈥渘atural鈥� birth control
Sat 20 Aug 2022
We examine online claims about the effectiveness of 鈥渘atural鈥� birth control methods
