More or Less Podcast
Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life.
Episodes to download
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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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The things we fail to see
Sat 8 Jun 2019
The hidden influences that 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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Volcanoes versus humans
Sat 1 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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Florence Nightingale – recognising the nurse statistician
Sat 25 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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Making music out of money
Sat 18 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 Recession
Sat 11 May 2019
US and British surveys show people are having less sex than in the past.
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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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Avengers - Should we reverse the snap?
Sat 4 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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Bernie Sanders and the cost of having a baby
Sat 27 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
Sat 20 Apr 2019
Major sports events and the benefits to the local economy.
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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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Where is Scotland’s highest village?
Sat 13 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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Rounding up the weed killer cancer conundrum
Sat 6 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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Chess cheats and the GOAT
Sat 30 Mar 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?
Unlock the history and truth behind the data with The OU
Explore how numbers shape, and sometimes mislead us, with The Open University.
When can you trust statistics?
BBC Ideas discovers three easy ways to help make sense of statistics.
