More or Less: behind the statistics
Tim 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
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Silicon Valley Bank: a very modern bank run
Saturday, March 18th, 2023
How do bank runs happen?
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Do fungi kill three times as many people as malaria?
Saturday, March 11th, 2023
We investigate the claim that fungal infections are a much bigger killer than malaria.
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Does your jewellery contain stolen Brink’s-Mat gold?
Saturday, March 4th, 2023
We ask what happened to the 3 tonnes of pure gold after the infamous robbery of 1983
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UK vs European energy prices, falling excess deaths and is 5 grams of cocaine a lot?
Wednesday, March 1st, 2023
We debunk a claim that the UK has by far the highest energy prices in Europe
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Do 29,000 coffee pods really go to landfill every minute?
Saturday, February 25th, 2023
We explore the environmental consequences of our thirst for coffee
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Reoffending rates, Welsh taxes and the menopause
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023
Tim Harford and team fact check a government claim about falling reoffending rates
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Florence Nightingale and how she visualised data
Saturday, February 18th, 2023
Tim Harford discusses the power of the nurse statistician’s groundbreaking diagrams
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Nurses pay, ambulance times and forgotten female economists
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023
We look at how much nurses in the UK are paid compared with those in Europe.
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Spreadsheet disasters
Saturday, February 11th, 2023
The long and costly history of spreadsheet mistakes
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The IMF and the UK economy, NHS staff shortages and British vs English
Wednesday, February 8th, 2023
How much should we trust the IMF’s forecasts for the UK?
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Hannah Fry on using shopping data to detect ovarian cancer
Saturday, February 4th, 2023
The mathematician discusses a study that suggests loyalty card data could signal cancer.
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Brexit and trade, pensioner millionaires and Hannah Fry on loyalty cards and cancer
Wednesday, February 1st, 2023
We examine a claim that the UK’s trade with the EU has increased since Brexit
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Are wild mammals only 4% of the mammal population?
Saturday, January 28th, 2023
Are wild mammals only 4% of the mammal population?
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Coffee with the Chancellor, inflation measures, GP numbers and toilet paper
Wednesday, January 25th, 2023
We fact check Jeremy Hunt’s pledge to halve inflation
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Does toilet paper cause 15% of global deforestation?
Saturday, January 21st, 2023
We investigate the impact of our use of toilet paper on the world’s forests.
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Ambulance response times, teacher pay and Irish pubs
Wednesday, January 18th, 2023
How long are people really waiting when they call 999 for an ambulance?
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How we shook the world of very large numbers
Saturday, January 14th, 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
Wednesday, January 11th, 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?
Saturday, January 7th, 2023
Is China under-reporting data on Covid related deaths?
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Irish pubs - a global numbers game
Saturday, December 31st, 2022
Are there more Irish pubs in Ireland than in all other countries combined?
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Numbers of the Year 2022
Saturday, December 24th, 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
Saturday, December 17th, 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?
Saturday, December 10th, 2022
How good policies depend on the availability of reliable statistics
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The World Cup: how many migrant workers have died?
Saturday, December 3rd, 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?
Saturday, November 26th, 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?
Saturday, November 19th, 2022
Has hosting the FIFA football World Cup really cost Qatar $220bn?
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Bonus Episode: Understand the Economy
Monday, November 14th, 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
Saturday, November 12th, 2022
Tim Harford discusses the role statistics should play in the reporting of the news
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Lula’s “zero deforestation” plan for the Amazon
Saturday, November 5th, 2022
How much of the rainforest has been lost? And can Brazil’s new president save it?
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Can China’s GDP data be trusted?
Saturday, October 29th, 2022
Are China’s most recent figures for economic growth wrong?
Now and Next
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Non-Stop Night Shift2:00am - 6:00am
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Andy Swift in the Morning10:00am - Noon
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Wolverhampton Today with Jason ForrestNoon - 3:00pm