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 BBC Radio 4
Episodes to download
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Mice and mind blowing maths
Friday
Re-inserting a caveat and discussing a really cool numbers trick.
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Immigrant Crime Rate in the US
Fri 9 Aug 2019
Do immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans in the United States?
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The spread of fact-checking in Africa
Fri 2 Aug 2019
With misinformation so easy to spread, how can it be stopped or challenged?
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Pregnancy prohibitions – the evidence
Fri 26 Jul 2019
Taking a statistical look at what expectant mothers should avoid.
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Zimbabwe’s economy: Are sanctions to blame?
Fri 19 Jul 2019
We look at politicians’ claims that sanctions are to blame for Zimbabwe’s difficulties.
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Two World Cups: Football and Cricket
Fri 5 Jul 2019
We look at numbers involved with the two World Cups going on right now.
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Is nuclear power actually safer than you think?
Fri 28 Jun 2019
We compare how deadly different forms of power generation are.
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Questioning the Chernobyl disaster death count
Fri 21 Jun 2019
We fact check the recent TV drama Chernobyl
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WS More or Less: Dealing with the Numbers of Cancer
Fri 14 Jun 2019
How one woman used statistics to help cope with cancer.
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WS More or Less: The things we fail to see
Mon 10 Jun 2019
The hidden influences that a make a big difference to the way the world works.
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Are married women flipping miserable?
Fri 7 Jun 2019
Measuring happiness, university access in Scotland, plus will one in two get cancer?
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WS More or Less: Volcanoes versus humans
Mon 3 Jun 2019
Does Mount Etna produce more carbon emissions than humans? We check the numbers.
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Hay Festival Special
Fri 31 May 2019
What does it mean to say that the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world?
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WS More or Less: Florence Nightingale – recognising the nurse statistician
Mon 27 May 2019
How collecting data about the dead led the famous nurse to promote better sanitation.
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Eurovision and fact-checking Naomi Wolf
Fri 24 May 2019
The stats behind making a successful song, plus misunderstanding Victorian court records.
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Making music out of Money
Mon 20 May 2019
A musical interpretation of a chart depicting the yield-curve of American bonds.
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Heart deaths, Organised crime and Gender data gaps
Fri 17 May 2019
Are more people dying from coronary disease? Plus how we need more economic data on women
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Sex, coal, missing people and mice
Fri 10 May 2019
Are we having less sex? And what happened to coal? (These items are unrelated.)
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Avengers - Should we reverse the snap?
Mon 6 May 2019
Exploring the economic impact of losing half the world’s population
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Nurses, flatmates and cats
Fri 3 May 2019
We look into sobering statistics about nurses and some curious claims about house-sharing
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Bernie Sanders and the cost of having a baby
Mon 29 Apr 2019
Did Bernie Sanders get the cost of giving birth right?
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Hottest Easter, Insects, Scottish villages
Fri 26 Apr 2019
Should we be surprised Easter Monday was the hottest recorded?
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The economic impact of mega sporting events
Fri 19 Apr 2019
Major sports events and the benefits to the local economy.
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Where is Scotland’s highest village?
Mon 15 Apr 2019
A battle is brewing in the Southern Scottish uplands between two rival villages.
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Rounding up the weed killer cancer conundrum
Mon 8 Apr 2019
We examine the cancer-causing potential of the weed killer glyphosate
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Chess cheats and the GOAT
Mon 1 Apr 2019
What a statistical analysis of chess moves can teach us about this ancient game.
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Is Mansa Musa the richest person of all time?
Mon 25 Mar 2019
Is the West African king, Mansa Musa, the richest person who ever lived?
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Day light saving time and heart attacks
Mon 18 Mar 2019
Does the sudden loss of an hour of sleep raise the risk of having a heart attack?
