More or Less: Behind the Stats
Summary: Tim Harford investigates numbers in the news. Numbers are used in every area of public debate. But are they always reliable? Tim and the More or Less team try to make sense of the statistics which surround us. A half-hour programme broadcast at 1600 on Friday afternoons and repeated at 2000 on Sundays on Radio 4. BBC World Service broadcasts a short edition over the weekend.
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- Artist: BBC Radio 4
- Copyright: (C) BBC 2015
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The Tour de France, we are told, has finally cleaned up its act and clamped down on the use of performance-enhancing drugs. But if it has, should we expect today’s drug-free riders to be slower than their drug-fuelled forebears? Can statistics tell us whether the Tour de France really is cleaner than it was? Also in the programme: does when you retire influence when you die?
The Tour de France, we are told, has finally cleaned up its act and clamped down on the use of performance-enhancing drugs. But if it has, should we expect today’s drug-free riders to be slower than their drug-fuelled forebears? Can statistics tell us whether the Tour de France really is cleaner than it was? Also in the programme: does when you retire influence when you die?
How much damage did messing with Libor really do to the financial system? And we investigate the claim made by a leading charity that a million British children are "starving".
How much damage did messing with Libor really do to the financial system? After all, most financial trades are two way bets – and for every winner, there is a loser.
Do residents of the tiny micronesian island of Palau really smoke more cannabis, and drink more beer, than anyone else?
What is the highest-earning film ever if you adjust for inflation? And are birthdays killing us?
How fat could the global population become? Plus, Angela Saini considers whether statistics could settle the disputed result of the world title fight between boxers Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley. This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.
Is the likelihood of bumping into your boss on holiday greater than you think? Angela Saini and the More or Less team assess the probabilities of some of life's great coincidences. This edition of More or Less was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.
Tim Harford interviews Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics. The author of Thinking, Fast and Slow describes the common mistakes people make with statistics.
How many images of Queen Elizabeth II have ever been created? And is Facebook really worth more than twice as much as every company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange?
Is there any evidence to support the Beecroft Review's recommended changes to employment law? Plus: hard-working Greeks, infidelity, and Ben Goldacre on publication bias.
It’s a very commonly-held belief that men are less faithful than women But it takes two to tango. So can this be mathematically possible? And we answer a cry for help from an Australian listener who wants to be “a bit more average”.
Earlier in the year we found out that Greeks put in more working hours than Germans. But the Germans are more efficient. So that got us thinking: who works the longest hours in the world?
Troubled families, nursing numbers and the mathematical consequences of unneutered cats.
Would it be cheaper to send every Greek rail passenger by taxi instead? This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.
