Episodes

December 23, 2022

Numbers of the Year 2022
Tim Harford discusses the numbers that help explain some of the biggest stories of the year, including the war in Ukraine, soaring inflation and a breakthrough for women’s football, with the help of Olga Ivshina, correspondent for the BBC Russian service; Chris Giles, economics editor of the Financi...
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December 16, 2022

Qatar World Cup: the pressure of penalties
The World Cup in Qatar is drawing to a close. Penalties and penalty shootouts have provided some of the biggest moments of the tournament. We analyse penalty data from the World Cup and ask what boosts the chance of scoring from the spot, with the help of Ben Lyttleton, author of Twelve Yards: The A...
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December 9, 2022

Why are data so important in determining how we live?
Why are good data so important to policymakers – whether they know it or not – and what happens when good data is missing? Presenter Tim Harford speaks to Georgina Sturge, a statistician at the House of Commons library in London and the author of Bad Data: How Governments, Politicians and the Rest ...
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December 3, 2022

The World Cup: how many migrant workers have died?
Qatar has been fiercely criticised over its treatment of migrant workers, many of whom have been employed to build stadiums and other infrastructure in preparation for the 2022 World Cup. We look at the wildly varying estimates of the number of migrant deaths with the help of Max Tunon, head of the ...
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November 25, 2022

When do food shortages become a famine?
Somalia is experiencing its worst drought for 40 years and there are warnings that millions of people need food assistance urgently. The UN body tasked with classifying levels of food security has projected a famine, although no official declaration has yet been made. We ask what data is used to for...
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November 18, 2022

A $220 billion World Cup?
As the FIFA World Cup in Qatar gets underway, and the newly built stadia, lavish hotels and transport networks come to life, More or Less investigates just how much the Gulf nation has spent in the lead-up to the tournament. Reports claim the figure could be as much as $220 billion - that’s more tha...
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November 14, 2022

Bonus Episode: Understand the Economy
Tim Harford brings you the first episode of his new podcast, Understand the Economy. If you’ve been missing his dulcet tones, here’s a chance for you to have a preview of Tim Harford’s latest podcast, in which he offers really simple explanations to help make sense of the economy today. If you enjoy...
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November 11, 2022

Improving the numbers in the news
How can journalists improve their use of statistics in their reporting of the world around us? It’s a question US academics John Bailer and Rosemary Pennington tackle in their new book Statistics Behind the Headlines. They join Tim Harford to talk about how journalism can be improved by asking the r...
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November 4, 2022

Lula’s “zero deforestation” plan for the Amazon
Lula Da Silva has pledged “zero deforestation” in the Amazon as he prepares to become Brazil’s next president, in contrast to the policies of outgoing leader Jair Bolsonaro under whom the destruction of the rainforest has soared. On this edition of More or Less we ask how much of the Amazon has been...
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October 28, 2022

Can China’s GDP data be trusted?
This week, China released its third quarter GDP figure. At 3.9%, its rate of economic growth is better than many analysts expected, but still significantly short of the 5.5% target the Chinese government had set itself. There was an unprecedented delay in releasing this particular GDP stat - and t...
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October 21, 2022

Do half of new books really sell fewer than twelve copies?
A US government lawyer recently caused a stir in the publishing world when he said during a high profile legal trial that half of all new trade titles – books aimed at a general audience - sell a dozen copies or less. Tim Harford investigates with the help of Kristen McLean from the NPD Books group....
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October 14, 2022

Ben Bernanke and the magic of banking
The former head of the US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke is named as one of three winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on how banking collapses were a major factor in the Great Depression of the 1930s. He shares the prize with two fellow US academics, Douglas Diamond and P...
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October 7, 2022

Catching Chess Cheats with Data
A cheating scandal is currently rocking the world of chess, as World Champion Magnus Carlsen accuses the young American Hans Niemann of cheating. A bombshell new report has said that Niemann is likely to have cheated in over 100 games online, and uses data to support its argument. So how is statist...
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October 7, 2022

Teens and antidepressants, stamp duty savings and earthquake probabilities
A survey from a mental health charity suggested that more than a third of British teenagers had been prescribed antidepressants. We debunk the figure. Also we investigate a tweet from the UK Treasury about how much homebuyers will save in stamp duty. Plus how Mexico has been hit by earthquakes three...
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October 5, 2022

Teens and antidepressants, stamp duty savings and earthquake probabilities
A survey from a mental health charity suggested that more than a third of British teenagers had been prescribed antidepressants. We debunk the figure. Also we investigate a tweet from the UK Treasury about how much homebuyers will save in stamp duty. Plus how Mexico has been hit by earthquakes three...
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September 30, 2022

NASA’s asteroid collision: how many asteroids are really out there?
This week NASA slammed a spacecraft into an asteroid in the hope of diverting its course. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART mission will help scientists understand how easy it would be protect Earth if one was headed in our direction. More Or Less first discussed this in 2016 with a littl...
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September 28, 2022

Falling pound, the Queen’s funeral and is 0.5 on the Richter scale a big number?
The value of the pound against other currencies has been incredibly volatile ever since the Chancellor’s ‘mini-budget’. We ask how much we should worry and look at how much taxes will really fall. Also did 4.1 billion people really watch the Queen’s funeral? Gas prices are falling – so why aren’t en...
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September 23, 2022

Ukraine’s progress in numbers
Ukraine has reportedly recaptured nearly 10,000 square kilometres of territory that had been occupied by Russia. We ask where the numbers come from and what they mean. Plus with Norway supplanting Russia to become Europe’s biggest supplier of natural gas, we ask how much money the country is making ...
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September 22, 2022

Ukraine offensive, weak pound & how much do women really exercise
Ukraine has reportedly recaptured nearly 10,000 square kilometres of territory that had been occupied by Russia. We ask where the numbers come from, what they mean and why everyone is comparing them to the size of Greater London. We ask how much money Norway is making out of the current energy crisi...
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September 16, 2022

How bad is fashion for the environment?
Is fashion really the second most polluting industry after oil and does it account for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions? Sustainable fashion journalist Alden Wicker does some fashion fact checking with Adam Fleming, presenter of BBC podcast and Radio 4 programme Antisocial. And reporter Charlotte M...
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September 14, 2022

Energy crisis plan, imperial measures survey, gardens v national parks
One of Liz Truss's first acts as Prime Minister was to announce a giant plan to protect domestic energy users from huge rises in wholesale gas and electricity costs, meaning a typical household will pay about £1000 less than otherwise would have been the case. We ask how much the Energy Price Guaran...
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September 9, 2022

Is a third of Pakistan really under water?
Pakistan is battling a huge natural disaster as a result of heavy monsoon rains. It’s been widely reported that a third of the country is under water. But can that really be the case? Featuring the BBC’s correspondent in Pakistan Pumza Fihlani and Dr Simon Cook, a senior lecturer in Environmental Sc...
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September 7, 2022

Pakistan flooding, UK power prices and Boris’s broadband claim
Devastating floods have wreaked havoc across Pakistan after the heaviest monsoon rains in at least a decade. But is a third of the country really under water, as has been claimed? Also why do electricity prices in the UK rise in line with gas prices when we get so much of our power from other source...
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September 2, 2022

Can we use maths to beat the robots?
Daily advances in the technology of artificial intelligence may leave humans playing catch-up – but in at least one area we can still retain an edge, mathematics. However it’ll require changes in how we think about and teach maths and we may still have to leave the simple adding up to the computers....
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August 31, 2022

Energy prices, excess deaths and the race to count to 200
With energy prices in the UK spiralling, Tim Harford asks whether there is an easy and realistic way for bills to be cut. Also the number of excess deaths in the UK is rising – we’ll hear how much covid is still to blame. We return to the subject of counting in twenties, this time hearing how the We...
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August 26, 2022

Kenya’s Election Rounding Error
When the official figures were announced in Kenya’s presidential election, it looked like the total percentage share of the vote for each candidate came to more than 100%. As this should not be possible, many wondered if up to 142,000 votes might be miscounted. We explore what turns out to be a simp...
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August 19, 2022

The numbers behind “natural” birth control
Videos on TikTok have been claiming that so-called “natural” birth control methods can be 99% effective. We examine what we really know, and how we know it.
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August 12, 2022

Is opinion polling broken?
The opinion polling industry’s reputation has taken a battering in recent years, as high profile slip-ups in the US presidential election exposed frailties. So should we write them off? Not according to Economist data journalist G Elliot Morris, who’s written a book called Strength in Numbers: How P...
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August 5, 2022

Debunking the Liverpool FC Conspiracy Theory
Ahead of the opening of the new season of the English Premier League, baseless rumours and dodgy statistics circulating online have implied that Liverpool FC use asthma medication to enhance their players’ performance. Ben Carter speaks to sports scientist Professor John Dickinson to examine the s...
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July 29, 2022

How our world measures up
Why do we measure the world around us in the way we do? There is a rich history to be explored - from measuring the depth of the Nile in Ancient Egypt to the central role the French played in developing the metric system and the ultra-precise measurement systems we use today. Presenter Tim Harford i...
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July 22, 2022

Does the World Athletics Championships have a false start problem?
US athlete Devon Allen has made global headlines this week after being disqualified from the 110m hurdles final at the World Athletics Championship in Eugene, Oregon. He was judged to have left the starting blocks a thousandth of a second too early. On More or Less we crunch the numbers behind false...
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July 15, 2022

Is Uganda about to become a middle income country?
In his State of the Nation address in early June 2022, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni said that Uganda was on the cusp of becoming a middle income country. That’s been contradicted by World Bank figures. In response to a question from a More or Less fan in Uganda, Tim Harford looks at how a coun...
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July 8, 2022

Does it take 10,000 litres of water to make a pair of jeans?
Various claims have been made about how much water is used in the production of a pair of jeans, that cornerstone of casual clothing. With growing worries over the environmental impact of denim production, More or Less decided to investigate - with the help of journalist and researcher Elizabeth L. ...
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July 1, 2022

How many American women will have an abortion in their lifetime?
Earlier this month, the US Supreme Court overturned its 1973 ruling on Roe vs Wade - the case which guaranteed a constitutional right to a legal abortion across the US, sparking heated protests and debates across the country. But how many American women will have an abortion in their lifetime? One ...
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June 29, 2022

Covid climb, childcare costs and why can’t the French count properly?
Covid cases are rising once again – how accurately are official figures picking up the new wave and how worried we should be? We discuss inflationary spirals and how much wage and pension increases contribute to inflation. Also how many parents actually struggle with childcare costs? Can long waits ...
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June 24, 2022

Ed Sheeran and the mathematics of musical coincidences
After beating a plagiarism claim in court, musician Ed Sheeran said that musical coincidences were inevitable with only 12 notes to choose from… but what do the numbers say? Mathematician and concert pianist Eugenia Cheng takes us through the mathematics of music and explains how the power of expone...
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June 22, 2022

Rail strikes, tyre pollution and sex statistics
Do rail workers really earn £13,000 a year more than nurses? As rail strikes severely hit services we look at some of the claims being made around pay – and explain how you can measure average pay in different ways. Plus we investigate claims that Chancellor Rishi Sunak wasted £11bn by paying too m...
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June 17, 2022

How often do people have sex?
Magazine articles and advice columns are commonly littered with spurious statistics about how much sex we’re having. So how much do we really know – and what are the difficulties of collecting information about such an intimate part of our lives? Doctor Marina Adshade from the Vancouver School of ...
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June 15, 2022

Maternity litigation, stars, bees and windowless planes
The former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says that the cost of maternity litigation claims in England is now more than the cost of salaries for maternity nurses and doctors. We crunch the numbers and ask how worried parents and taxpayers should be. Also are there more bees in the world than stars in ...
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June 10, 2022

Hannah Fry: Understanding the numbers of cancer
British mathematics professor and broadcaster Hannah Fry has spent many years trying to explain the world through numbers. But when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer she embarked on a new mission – to discover whether the medical world, and we as individuals, make the right choices around treat...
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June 8, 2022

Employment puzzle, pyramids and triplets
The UK has a low unemployment rate, and a large number of people who are not working right now – we look at how both of these are true with the help of Chris Giles from the FT and Louise Murphy from the Resolution Foundation. Have pyramids really moved 4km south since they were built? For years, t...
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June 3, 2022

Are girls starting puberty earlier?
In the 1980s, Dr Marcia Herman-Giddens was one of the first people to notice that girls were starting puberty earlier than expected. We talk to Dr Marcia Herman-Giddens and Dr Louise Greenspan about what we know now about whether the age of girls’ puberty is falling. (Mother and daughter in the...
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June 1, 2022

Jubilee costs, fuel poverty and imperial measures
Is the government really spending a billion pounds on the Jubilee, as some have claimed? We investigate some of the facts and figures around this week’s commemorations. We also ask why energy bills are becoming so high in the UK when we actually have plenty of gas, and we unpack the mystery of measu...
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May 27, 2022

Noisy Decisions
Nobel memorial prize winner Daniel Kahneman is one of the world’s most famous psychologists, known particularly for his work identifying the role of cognitive bias in everyday decision making. In this edition of More or Less he talks to Tim Harford about his latest book, Noise - A Flaw in Human Judg...
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May 25, 2022

Germany’s excess deaths, Eurovision and teacher shortages
Some recent, and surprising, estimates from the World Health Organisation suggested that the UK fared better than Germany in the pandemic. But did they get it right? At Eurovision this year an algorithm was apparently used to replace whole countries’ votes - was it responsible for the UK’s second-p...
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May 20, 2022

Are just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions and how stressed are South Africans?
In the fight against global warming we’re constantly told to do our bit to reduce green house gas emissions. However, a claim circulating that just ‘100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions’ can make any individual effort seem futile. But does this claim mean what you think it means...
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May 13, 2022

Did the WHO get some of its excess death estimates wrong?
The World Health Organisation recently released some new estimates of the global death toll of the pandemic. But the figures for a few countries have caused controversy. Tim Harford speaks to Professor Jon Wakefield, who worked on the analysis - and Indian data journalist Rukmini S about the debat...
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May 6, 2022

Have the oceans become 30% more acidic?
Although the climate-changing effects of Carbon Dioxide emissions are well known, they are changing our oceans too, making them more acidic. But how much? Tim Harford explores the statistical quirks of ocean acidification, from pH to the mysteries of logarithmic scales. With Dr Helen Findlay from t...
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April 29, 2022

Sweden’s polarising pandemic response
When much of Europe went into lockdown at the start of pandemic, Sweden’s lighter touch strategy got lots of attention. Fans of the approach say it was a huge success that showed lockdowns were pointless. Opponents say it has been a disaster. But what do the numbers say? In this episode of More Or ...
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April 22, 2022

Understanding India through Data
How do you go about understanding a country with a population as diverse as it is vast? Data journalist Rukmini S is the author of Whole Numbers and Half Truths: What Data Can and Cannot Tell Us About Modern India. Tim Harford spoke to her about the power and pitfalls of using statistics to make...
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April 14, 2022

Subitising and simplifying: how to better explain numbers
Have you ever looked at a numerical claim and thought ‘what on earth does that mean?’ Complex numbers are often badly communicated, making it difficult for the public to appreciate what they signify - but dial things down too much and you’re at risk of oversimplifying important issues. It’s a tightr...
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April 8, 2022

Did tea-drinking cut deaths in the Industrial Revolution?
Could an explosion in tea-drinking explain a decline in deaths in England during the industrial revolution? Professor Francisca Antman, an economist at the University of Colorado Boulder believes it might. Tim Harford discovers that dusting down the data from tea shipments and local burial records ...
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April 1, 2022

Will the war in Ukraine cause a global wheat shortage?
As the Russian Invasion of Ukraine continues, the effects ripple around the rest of the world. One concern involves the wheat harvest. There have been claims that Ukraine and Russia supply 25% of the worlds wheat and that as a result we’re facing a global wheat crisis. We look into this misleading f...
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March 20, 2022

Pizza and Nuclear War
The War in Ukraine has reminded the world how easily conflict might escalate into a Nuclear War. But according to Professor Barry Nalebuff of Yale University, good strategy and negotiating can help us with everything from avoiding Armageddon to dividing up a pizza fairly. Tim Harford talks to Barr...
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March 13, 2022

Does the UK take in more refugees than other European countries?
As the war in Ukraine continues, Reuters has reported that some 2.3 million people have been displaced. So far many of those have sought refuge in neighbouring countries. The UN estimates that as of the 8th of march Poland has taken in almost 1.3 million refugees, Hungary just over 200,000 and Slov...
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March 6, 2022

Numbers in Ukraine and low seas in Chagos
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we take a look at some of the numbers coming out of the conflict and ask how to know which information you can trust during a war. We also investigate the perplexing claim that the seas around the Chagos Islands are 100m lower than the seas around the rest of ...
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March 2, 2022

Troop and Casualty Numbers in Ukraine
How reliable are the figures coming out of the conflict in Ukraine? Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we consider claims about the numbers of troops involved, people killed, and planes downed. Also: are the prime minister’s parliamentary claims about growing numbers of NHS staff backed up by...
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February 27, 2022

Did lockdowns save any lives?
Lockdown. A word we’ve all become overly familiar with over the past two years. Lockdowns were intended to protect people, especially societies most vulnerable, from the risks associated with contracting Covid. However, a new study has been making headlines which claims to show that mandatory lockdo...
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February 23, 2022

Vaccinating children, lockdowns, and ebikes
Jabs for five to 11-year-olds, lockdown effectiveness, and being green on two wheels. Governments across the UK have decided to offer Covid vaccinations to primary school-aged children. What was the data behind this decision? What effect did lockdowns have on preventing deaths from Covid? We look ...
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February 20, 2022

Hospitalisation rates for children with Covid
Covid vaccines will be offered to all children across the UK between the ages of 5 and 12 - some months after the same decision in countries such as Italy and Germany. It is a topic that has caused a fair amount of controversy and with controversy often comes suspicious statistical claims. We look ...
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February 16, 2022

Questioning claims about Covid and children
How likely are children to end up in hospital because of Covid? And how many have died? We scrutinise some scary stats that have been circulating on social and examine what excess deaths figures tell us about the risks of Covid compared to other illnesses. Plus, with the gift of hindsight, we exam...
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February 13, 2022

Testosterone and sport
In early December 2021 a member of Penn University Women’s Swim Team caused a stir. Lia Thomas not only won three events but she had the fastest time in elite college swimming in the country in two out of three races. This achievement reignited a debate as Lia Thomas is a transgender woman; we exami...
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February 9, 2022

The prime minister in statistical bother
Boris Johnson has been ticked off for misleading Parliament on jobs and on crime. He claimed that the number of people in employment has been rising - when it’s been falling. And he made a claim that crime has fallen - when it’s risen. We discuss the truth, and what Parliament can do to defend it....
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February 6, 2022

Can you fool your brain?
Have you given up on your New Year’s resolution yet? Every year many of us make the promise to become better, shinier, more accomplished versions of ourselves by the same time next year. It’s often easier said than done but to an extent it really is the thought that counts. David Robson, author of ‘...
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February 2, 2022

Does the UK have the fastest growing economy in the G7?
Conservative politicians have taken to the airwaves to tell us to forget the parties, and just look at the economic growth - but is the UK really growing faster than other leading economies? The Omicron variant has raised the chance that people are re-infected with Covid - how common is that, and s...
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January 30, 2022

Fertility rates: baby boom or bust?
Under lockdown, couples were destined to find themselves closer than ever before, but despite what you’d think – this didn’t result in a higher birth rate. In fact in developed countries across the world the birth rate is falling, we spoke to Professor Marina Adshade about why this is and what this ...
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January 26, 2022

Should you follow the 5 second rule? And does inflation hit the poorest harder?
Food writer Jack Monroe sparked national debate this week when she tweeted about food price hikes on the cheapest goods in supermarkets - but does inflation really hit low income households hardest? Social media and some news outlets have spread claims this week that only around 17,000 people have ...
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January 23, 2022

Are female patients more likely to die if the surgeon is male?
In early January several newspapers ran article claiming that ‘women are 32% more likely to die after operation by male surgeon. If true, this is a terrifying figure but is all as it seems? We dig into the data to find out whether women should really be worried about having a male surgeon.
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January 19, 2022

Are women 32% more likely to die after operation by a male surgeon?
Are women 32% more likely to die after operation by a male surgeon? Headlines asserting this were shared across social media recently - but the truth is a bit more complicated. We compare the price and the quality of the UK’s Test and Trace system with that of Germany and check on what’s happening ...
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January 16, 2022

QAnon: Did 365,348 children go missing in the US in 2020?
In December, Republican politician Lauren Boebert tweeted the claim that ‘365,348 children went missing in 2020’. This is a shocking statistic but is it true and does it mean what we think it means? We speak to Gabriel Gatehouse, international editor of Newsnight, who has been investigating conspira...
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January 12, 2022

Omicron, pandemic birth rates and boosters
The pandemic seems to be entering a new phase as Omicron has taken hold. Is it milder? And how might we make decisions based on the latest data? Predictions that lockdowns might lead to a baby boom have proven wrong - in fact fertility is falling. We re-examine a baffling claim about the number of...
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January 8, 2022

How much plastic is in the Ocean and can Mr Beast make a difference?
In October of last year popular Youtubers Mark Rober and the enigmatically named Mr Beast pledged to remove 30 million pounds of plastic from the Ocean – if they could raise $30 million dollars. A dollar per pound of plastic sounds like a fairly good deal, but how much plastic is out there and will ...
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January 2, 2022

Will the population of Nigeria be larger than Europe’s?
In recent years population growth has slowed rapidly. Experts believe that the global population will stabilise somewhere around 11 billion people. But just because global population is stabilising doesn’t mean each country is following the global trend. Some projections estimate that the population...
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December 26, 2021

Numbers of 2021
A guide to the most concerning, striking and downright extraordinary numbers of 2021. Tim Harford asks three More or Less interviewees about their most significant and memorable figure over the past year. From the excess death toll of Covid-19; to declining total fertility rates, and a spike in the ...
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December 19, 2021

The psychological economics of gift giving
Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year – if you have something to sell that is. Every year we waste hundreds of dollars on gifts that aren’t appreciated, but how can you ensure that the gifts you buy hit the mark every time? We speak to behavioural scientist Professor Francesca Gino to find...
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December 12, 2021

Does catching covid give you more immunity than being vaccinated?
Immunity to Covid-19. We've all been hoping to develop it ever since the virus emerged two years ago. Since then, a race to vaccinate the world has begun in earnest, with many countries rolling out booster shots in response to the rise of the Omicron variant. Health officials and scientists agree th...
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December 5, 2021

Does wearing a mask halve your chances of getting Covid-19?
Masks, you may not have worn them before 2020 but now we’re all at it. With the rise of the Omicron variant countries have scrambled to reintroduce public health policies, among them mask wearing. Health officials and scientists agree that masks help reduce the incidence of covid19 infections – but ...
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November 28, 2021

Simpson’s Paradox: How to make vaccinated death figures misleading
Vaccines are the best way to stop deaths and serious cases related to covid19, this is an irrefutable fact. However, recent ONS data seems to show that vaccinated people had a higher all cause death rate than unvaccinated people. Why is this data misleading? Here’s a clue: it’s to do with a quirky s...
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November 21, 2021

A TikTok tale
Nowadays if you are an academic and who needs some participants for a study you go online, but over the summer academic studies were inundated with participants who all happened to be teenage girls ... we explore how one TikTok can tip the balance of data gathering. Presenter: Tim Harford Produce...
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November 14, 2021

The carbon cost of breakfast at COP26
A French minister told people to eat fewer croissants at this year’s COP26 summit, after the menu said the carbon cost of the pastry was higher than that of a bacon roll, even if it was made without butter. Tim Harford investigates whether this claim could be true, and how the effect of food on clim...
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November 7, 2021

Same data, opposite results. Can we trust research?
When Professor Martin Schweinsberg found that he was consistently reaching different conclusions to his peers, even with the same data, he wondered if he was incompetent. So he set up an experiment. What he found out emphasises the importance of the analyst, but calls into question the level of tru...
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October 31, 2021

The art of counting
Who is counting, why are they counting, and what are they are counting? These three questions are important to ask when trying to understand numbers, according to Deborah Stone, author of Counting, How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters. In this episode, she explains how different ways of totti...
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October 24, 2021

The numbers behind Squid Game
Netflix has announced that South Korean survival drama Squid Game is its most popular series ever. We scrutinise the statistics behind the claim, and look at the odds of surviving one of the show’s deadly contests.
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October 17, 2021

The prize-winning economics of migration and the minimum wage
Do immigrants drive down wages, do minimum wage increases reduce job opportunities, and do people who did well in school earn more money? These are questions that the winners of the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics looked to the world around them for answers to. David Card, Joshua Angrist, and...
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October 7, 2021

Bonus episode: the first ever More or Less
A chat with More or Less's founding producer and presenter plus the first episode in full. Tim talks to Michael Blastland and Sir Andrew Dilnot about how More or Less came into being (after several rejections), whether politicians and journalists are more numerate now, and where the name come from...
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October 6, 2021

Twenty years of More or Less
A look back at our origins, plus the usual mix of numerical nous and statistical savvy. It’s two decades since More or Less first beamed arithmetic into the unsuspecting ears of Radio 4 listeners. We revisit the show’s genesis with the original presenter and producer. Why are there two different f...
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October 3, 2021

The Gender Pay Gap
Tim Harford talks to Planet Money’s Stacey Vanek Smith about the gender pay gap in the US and the UK – and how Renaissance writer, Machiavelli might be an unlikely source of inspiration for women in the workplace.
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September 29, 2021

Is it easy being green?
Is our electricity extra expensive and our insulation inadequate? And a tale of tumbling trees. Internet infographics suggest we’re paying way more for our energy than countries in the EU. Are they being interpreted correctly? And what part, if any, has Brexit had to play? Insulation Britain activ...
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September 22, 2021

Covid trends, face mask use, and the universal credit cut
A coronavirus check-in, our daily mask use measured, and a minister's claim on the universal credit cut questioned. There was a time when the latest Covid statistics were headline news daily, but as the pandemic has stretched on into its second year and third wave people don't pay as much attention...
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September 19, 2021

How many holes are there in a drinking straw?
Tim Harford talks to Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, about the pandemic, geometry and drinking straws. (multi-coloured straws/Getty images)
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September 15, 2021

Death, Tax and Dishwashers
New data appears to show that double vaxxed people between 40 and 79 are getting Covid at higher rates than people who are unvaccinated, but that's not the case. It's all down to how Public Health England estimates the size of different populations. The Office for National Statistics described 202...
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September 8, 2021

Vaccine waning, hot dogs and Afghanistan
Should we be worried that the protection against Covid-19 provided by the vaccines is going down? Could it really be the case that eating a hot dog takes 36 minutes from your life? The Bank of England holds 35% of Government debt. Who owns the other 65%? Has the UK spent more on Test and Trace than...
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September 3, 2021

The Bill for Afghanistan
American President Joe Biden has said the war in Afghanistan cost more than $2 trillion. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic International Studies helps us unpick what’s included in this figure.
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September 1, 2021

Covid, HGV driver shortages and protest costs
English Covid restrictions were lifted in July. Back then, some predicted that there could be as many as 6,000 hospital admissions a day by the following month. So, what happened? The Metropolitan Police says it’s spent £50 million on policing Extinction Rebellion since 2019. They’re on the streets...
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August 27, 2021

Reason, numbers and Mr Spock
Writer Julia Galef talks to Tim Harford about the role of numbers in helping us think more rationally, and what Star Trek’s Mr Spock can teach us about making predictions. Julia is author of The Scout Mindset, a book about how our attempts to be rational are often clouded or derailed by our human im...
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August 20, 2021

The extraordinary life of Robert Moses
Dr Robert Moses, a pioneer in African-American civil rights and mathematics education has died at the age of 86. Charmaine Cozier looks at an extraordinary life, from the courthouses of 1960s Mississippi to the classrooms of modern public schools, and traces the philosophy and values that threaded t...
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August 16, 2021

How good were the performances at the Tokyo Olympics?
A year later than planned, The Tokyo Olympics, have now finished. Thousands of athletes have competed in events that few thought might go ahead and there’s been record success. This week we take a look at Olympic numbers – how many records were broken in Tokyo, what factors might have influenced t...
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August 6, 2021

Jab fears explained: a base rate fallacy
As some countries rapidly roll out vaccination programmes, there have been concerns that increases in infection rates amongst vaccinated groups mean vaccines are less effective than we hoped, especially in the face of the feared Delta variant. Epidemiologist Dr Katelyn Jetelina from the University...
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July 30, 2021

Breaking Climate Records
June saw a brutal heatwave shatter a number of all-time temperature records in Canada and the Northwest of the USA. But when can we attribute new records to man-made climate change, rather than natural variation? Peter Stott, an expert in climate attribution at the UK’s Met Office, explains how clim...
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July 23, 2021

The Rise of Delta
The Delta Variant was first identified in India, fuelling a huge wave of cases and deaths. It is now spreading around the world, becoming the most dominant variant in many countries. This week we take a look at the numbers - where’s it spreading, how is this different to previous waves and what can ...
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July 19, 2021

The Freedom Day Gamble
On the day the Government plans to drop the remaining Covid restirictions, Tim Harford and the More or Less team try to work out how long cases will continue to rise and whether we can be sure the link with deaths and hospitalisations has been broken. Is this “freedom day" or an unnecessary gamble w...
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July 9, 2021

Are there 40 million Nigerians on Twitter?
In recent months, Twitter has rarely been out of the headlines in Nigeria. After it deleted a tweet by the country’s president, the Nigerian government responded by banning it altogether. In the media coverage of the story it has been commonly claimed that Nigeria has 40 million Twitter users – but ...
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July 2, 2021

Is Ivermectin a Covid ‘wonder drug’?
To some on the internet, the cheap anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin is a potential wonder drug that could dramatically change the global fight against Covid-19. It has passionate proponents, from a small group of scientists to the more conspiratorially-minded. But with a scattered evidence base of var...
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June 30, 2021

Scotland cases, flood risk and taxing the poor
The UK’s Covid cases are still rising and Scotland is being hit particularly hard - so are we speeding up our vaccination programme in response? Will many of the UK’s coastal towns, not to mention central London, be underwater in the next few years? Do the country’s poorest households really pay m...
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June 25, 2021

Maths and the Mayflower
This year sees the delayed 400th anniversary celebrations of the Mayflower voyage, an event seen as a crucial moment in the history of the United States. But how many people alive today can trace back their lineage to those first 102 passengers? Tim speaks to Rob Eastaway and Dr Misha Ewen about mat...
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June 23, 2021

Delta cases, blue tits and that one-in-two cancer claim
The Delta variant is behind the big increase in the number of new Covid 19 cases in the UK since April. We take a look at what impact vaccines have had on infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Chris Packham told viewers on the BBC’s Springwatch that blue tits eat 35 billion caterpillars a year. ...
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June 18, 2021

The origins of Covid
To find out where a virus comes from, researchers compare it to other viruses to try to trace its origin. This leads to claims like SARS-CoV-2 is 91 or even 96% similar to other known viruses. But what does that really mean? Tim Harford talks to the virus ecologist Marilyn J Roossinck.
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June 16, 2021

Covid deaths, outdoor swimming and care homes
The official number of deaths attributed to Covid 19 around the world in the whole of 2020 is 1.88 million. The global toll this year surpassed this figure on 11th of June. We look at how things are worse worldwide, despite vaccines and lock downs. Does the UK have the worst bathing sites in Europ...
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June 11, 2021

The doubling of life-expectancy
Steven Johnson, author of Extra Life, tells the fascinating history of life expectancy, and the extraordinary achievements of the last century, in which it has practically doubled. It’s a story that has data at its heart, from the ground-breaking invention of the category itself in 17th century Lon...
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June 9, 2021

Third wave fears, smart motorways and bra sizes
Covid cases are rising again in the UK – should we be worried about a third wave? Tim Harford speaks to David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of Risk at the University of Cambridge. How safe are smart motorways? Many listeners have concerns that they seem more dangerous than conventional motorways....
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June 2, 2021

Bolton vaccines, Yorkshire versus Scotland and the average gamer
Health Minister Matt Hancock recently told the House of Commons that: “The number of vaccinations happening in Bolton right now is phenomenal - tens of thousands every single day.” We explain why this is not the case. The recent SNP election success has turned attention to the question of independe...
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May 28, 2021

The Seaspiracy “virtually empty ocean” claim
Popular Netflix documentary Seaspiracy has sparked a lot of debate recently, including some controversy over some of the claims the documentary makes and the numbers behind them. One of the most striking is that: “if current fishing trends continue we will see virtually empty oceans by the year 2048...
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May 26, 2021

Wales jab success, Eurovision and living with your parents
Wales has given one vaccination dose against Covid 19 to a larger proportion of their population than any other country except a couple of super tiny ones. They’ve given one vaccine dose to over 80% of their adult population. We explore some reasons why they seem to be doing so well. The UK continu...
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May 21, 2021

The medical trial that proved Trump wrong
The Recovery Trial, a nation-wide clinical study in the UK, helped identify treatments for Covid 19 in the early months of the pandemic. Tim Harford speaks to Professor Martin Landray of Oxford University whose team established the randomised trial.
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May 14, 2021

Explaining maths without Numbers
Tim Harford interviews Milo Beckman - a young mathematician, still in his twenties, who has written a book called ‘Math without Numbers’. Milo explains why he wanted to strip out digits to make it easier to describe the beauty of mathematics.
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May 7, 2021

Finding Mexico City’s real death toll
Mexico City’s official Covid 19 death toll did not seem to reflect the full extent of the crisis that hit the country in the spring of 2020 - this is according to Laurianne Despeghel and Mario Romero. These two ordinary citizens used publicly available data to show that excess deaths during the cris...
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May 2, 2021

Bayes: the clergyman whose maths changed the world
Bayes’ Rule has been used in AI, genetic studies, translating foreign languages and even cracking the Enigma Code in the Second World War. We find out about Thomas Bayes - the 18th century English statistician and clergyman whose work was largely forgotten until the 20th century.
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April 23, 2021

Will 2021 have more Covid deaths than 2020?
In 2020 there were 1.8 million reported Covid deaths. So far this year, we’ve had 1.2 million. We’re currently seeing around 12,000 deaths a day across the world. But while some areas are seeing falls in numbers, others such as India are seeing a surge. This week Tim Harford tries to answer the que...
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April 16, 2021

How many swimming pools full of vaccine do we need?
If we brought together all the Covid 19 vaccine needed for the whole world, how much space would it fill up? An Olympic size swimming pool? We do some back of the envelope sums. Plus - we look at the increased risk of clots from pregnancy. Last week we looked at the increased risk of getting a clo...
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April 9, 2021

Clot risks: The Pill versus the vaccine
The Astra Zeneca Covid 19 jab remains in the headlines because some regulators have concluded that it may raise the risk of a very rare type of blood clot, albeit to a risk that is still very low. In the past few weeks a number of countries have said they will limit its use to older age groups. But ...
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April 4, 2021

Too fast for Minecraft?
The impressive speed records of a well-known gamer called Dream for the video game Minecraft have come under scrutiny. Many say that Dream has completed speed runs in such a fast time that it doesn’t seem possible. Are these suspicions correct? We speak to stand-up mathematician Matt Parker who has ...
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March 26, 2021

In praise of Covid Data
On this week’s programme we talk to Clare Griffiths from the UK’s coronavirus dashboard and Alexis Madrigal from the Atlantic Magazine’s Covid Tracking Project in the US.
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March 19, 2021

Deciding when to suspend a vaccine
Many countries recently decided to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine over fears it was increasing the risk of blood clots. The European Medicines Agency and the WHO called on countries to continue using the vaccine but regulators in individual countries opted to be cautious, wai...
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March 12, 2021

The truth about obesity and Covid 19
A widely reported study claims that 90% of Covid 19 deaths across the world happened in countries with high obesity rates. While an individual’s risk of death is increased by having a high Body Mass Index, the broader effect on a country’s death rate is not what it seems.
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March 5, 2021

Sainthood and Cup draws
Tim Harford explores the chances of becoming a saint, inspired by a throw away comment by the detective on the TV drama ‘Death in Paradise.’ Plus, a listener has a question about the recent Europa League Draw for the final knockout round. He spotted that none of the teams face a rival from their o...
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February 26, 2021

Why are US Covid cases falling?
Cases of Covid 19 began to soar in the US in the autumn. By early January there were around 300,000 new cases a day. But since then the numbers have fallen steeply. What caused this dramatic drop? From herd immunity to the weather, Tim Harford explores some of the theories with Derek Thompson of The...
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February 19, 2021

Covid 19 death count: which countries are faring worst?
Are different countries counting deaths from Covid 19 in the same way? Tim Harford finds out if we can trust international comparisons with the data available. We discover Peru currently has the most excess deaths per capita over the course of the pandemic, while Belgium has the highest Covid deat...
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February 17, 2021

Comparing death counts, Lock Down drinking and Long Covid
The UK was the first European country to surpass 100,000 deaths from Covid 19. The UK has one of the worst death rates. But can we trust the numbers? Many of our listeners have asked us to investigate. Long Covid is widely acknowledged as being a growing problem, but what are the numbers involved?...
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February 12, 2021

How much Covid in the World?
If we brought all the virus particles of the Sars-CoV-2 virus from every human currently infected, how much would there be? This was a question posed by one of our listeners. We lined up two experts to try to work this out. YouTube maths nerd Matt Parker and Kit Yates, senior lecturer in mathematica...
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February 10, 2021

Brexit exports, cladding and are 1 in 5 disabled?
Are exports to the EU from the UK down 68% since Brexit? This apocalyptic statistic is being widely reported, but does it really tell us what’s happening at Dover and Folkstone? Ministers are tweeting reassuring numbers about flammable cladding on high rise buildings. We’re not so sure. Is it real...
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February 5, 2021

Glasgow vs Rwanda
Tim explores a shocking claim that life expectancy in some parts of Glasgow is less than it is in Rwanda. But is that fair on Glasgow and for that matter is it fair on Rwanda? And a listener asks whether loss of smell is a strong enough symptom of Covid that it might be used to help diagnose the vir...
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February 3, 2021

Teachers, Test & Trace and Butterflies
Prominent Labour politicians have claimed teachers are more likely to catch Covid-19, is that true? England’s Test and Trace programme has been widely criticised, has it raised its game in recent months? A ferocious row has broken out between scientists about how effective fast turnaround Lateral F...
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January 29, 2021

The Rapid Test Row
A ferocious row has broken out among scientists about new coronavirus tests. Lateral flow tests provide results within minutes and some scientists believe they are offer accurate enough results at a speed that could allow us to resume business as usual. Others think they are so poor at detecting the...
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January 27, 2021

Deaths at Home, Supermarket Infections and the Cobra Effect
Since the start of the pandemic there have been many warnings that people might die not just from the coronavirus itself, but also if they didn’t seek medical help out of fear that hospitals might be dangerous. Is there any evidence that this has happened? David Spiegelhalter is on the case. The UK...
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January 27, 2021

Deaths at home, supermarket infections and the Cobra effect
Since the start of the pandemic there have been many warnings that people might die not just from the coronavirus itself, but also if they didn’t seek medical help out of fear that hospitals might be dangerous. Is there any evidence that this has happened? David Spiegelhalter is on the case. The UK...
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January 22, 2021

Counting Covid’s impact on GDP
GDP figures for the period covering lockdown appear to show that the UK suffered a catastrophic decline, worse than almost any other country. But as Tim Harford finds out, things aren’t quite as bad for the UK as they might seem - though they might be worse for everywhere else. Also, alarming claims...
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January 20, 2021

Will the vaccine bring back normal life? GDP and Fishing
The vaccine rollout continues: how long will it take before we see the benefits, and what benefits will we see? Figures suggest the UK’s economy performed worse than almost anywhere else in the world during the pandemic. But are the numbers misleading us? Alarming claims have been circulating about ...
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January 14, 2021

How effective is one dose of the vaccine?
A lot has changed since More or Less was last on air. We give you a statistical picture of the second wave: how bad is it, and is there hope? The new vaccine regime is to delay the booster shot of the Pfizer vaccine for up to 3 months. But is the first dose 52% or 90% effective? A new virus variant ...
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January 9, 2021

Ants and Algorithms
What can ants tells us about whether something deserves to be popular? This is a question tackled in David Sumpter’s book – ‘The Ten Equations that Rule the World: And How You Can Use Them Too.’ He tells Tim Harford about some of the algorithms that you see in nature, and those harnessed by tech com...
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January 8, 2021

Numbers of the year: Part two
From the economic impact of Covid 19 to the number of people who have access to soap and water, we showcase figures that tell us something about 2020. Tim Harford asks a group of numbers-minded people to take a look back on the year and think of one statistic that really stands out for them. We spea...
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January 8, 2021

Numbers of the year: Part one
Tim Harford asks a group of numbers-minded people to take a look back on the year and think of one statistic that really stands out for them. From the spread of Covid-19 to the number of songs added to Spotify this year, we showcase figures that tell us something about 2020. We speak to Oliver Johns...
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December 19, 2020

The economics of a Covid Christmas
Tim Harford asks economist Joel Waldfogel how Covid 19 could affect spending at Christmas this year. They discuss the usual bump in sales and gift giving. The author of ‘Scroogenomics’ usually argues that presents are rarely as valued by the recipient compared to something they might buy for themsel...
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December 12, 2020

QAnon: Child runaways and trafficking numbers debunked
Tim Harford looks at false statistical claims online about missing and trafficked children in the US. These numbers have resurfaced online in part due to conspiracy theorists following QAnon. In the past few months they have inspired protests under the banner - ‘Save Our Children’. We wade through s...
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December 5, 2020

Vaccines: how safe and who gets it?
The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the use of a vaccine for Covid 19. But some people are worried that the decision was taken too quickly - can we really know it’s safe yet? Tim Harford tackles these safety concerns. Plus, what is the best way to distribute the vaccine? How...
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November 28, 2020

Tracking Covid 19
This year has shown us the importance of good robust data - as Covid-19 spread around the world it was vital to track where it was, how many people it was infecting and where it might go next. On More or Less we’ve spent months reporting on data inaccuracies and vacuums, but what makes for good or i...
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November 21, 2020

Inviting Covid for Dinner
If you go to a gathering of 25 or more people, what are the chances one of you has coronavirus? Imagine that you’re planning to hold some sort of gathering or dinner at your home. Take your pick of big festivities - it’s Thanksgiving in the US, we’ve just had Diwali and Christmas is on the horizon....
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November 14, 2020

Vaccine numbers
A vaccine which has shown in a clinical trial to be 90% effective against Covid 19 has been widely welcomed. But what does it mean and how was it worked out? Although experts and politicians urge caution, how excited can we be about the results of this trial of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and Bi...
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November 7, 2020

How deadly is Covid 19?
Tim Harford explores what we know about mortality rates in the current pandemic. We discuss the differences between the risks to different age groups, and why that has an effect on a country’s Covid 19 fatality rate. We speak to Dr Hannah Ritchie from the University of Oxford and Dr Daniel Howdon ...
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October 31, 2020

Asymptomatic Covid19 Cases
A headline in a British tabloid newspaper claimed that ‘Staggering 86% who tested Covid positive in lockdown had NONE of the official symptoms’ but what does this mean and is it true?
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October 24, 2020

US election: facts or fiction
Tim Harford hears about the sheer volume of false claims made during the campaign. President Trump is well known for making wild statements, but has his behaviour changed? And what about Joe Biden? So much attention is concentrated on Trump’s claims, how does the Democratic candidate fare? Glenn Kes...
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October 17, 2020

Auction Theory - Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson
Paul Milgrom and his former tutor Robert Wilson worked together for years developing ways to run complicated auctions for large resources. This month the two Stanford University professors were awarded the Nobel memorial prize in economics for their work. The auction formats they designed facilitate...
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October 10, 2020

A short history of probability
Tim Harford speaks to Jacob Goldstein about the unholy marriage of mathematicians, gamblers, and actuaries at the dawn of modern finance.
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October 7, 2020

Spreadsheet snafu, ‘Long Covid’ quantified, and the birth of probability
After nearly 16,000 cases disappeared off coronaviruses spreadsheets, we ask what went wrong. How common are lasting symptoms from Covid-19? If you survey people about the death toll from Covid, they’ll make mistakes. What do those mistakes teach us? Pedants versus poets on the subject of exponentia...
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September 30, 2020

“Record” Covid cases, Trump on the death count, and ant pheromones
Case counts in perspective, a suspect stat from the US, and life lessons from insects.
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September 23, 2020

Covid curve queried, false positives, and the Queen’s head
A scary government graph this week showed what would happen if coronavirus cases doubled every seven days. But is that what’s happening? There’s much confusion about how many Covid test results are false positives - we explain all. Plus, do coffee and pregnancy mix? And the Queen, Mao, and Gandhi go...
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September 19, 2020

The magical maths of pool testing
Tim Harford speaks to Israeli researcher, Tomer Hertz, about how the mathematical magic of pool testing could help countries to ramp up their Covid-19 testing capacity.
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September 16, 2020

Covid testing capacity, refugee numbers, and mascara
Amid reports of problems with coronavirus testing across the UK, we interrogate the numbers on laboratory capacity. Does the government’s Operation Moonshot plan for mass testing make statistical sense? Has the UK been taking more refugees from outside the European Union than any EU country? We expl...
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September 9, 2020

Covid cases rising, a guide to life’s risks, and racing jelly-fish
A jump in the number of UK Covid-19 cases reported by the government has led to fears coronavirus is now spreading quickly again. What do the numbers tell us about how worried we should be? Plus a guide to balancing life’s risks in the time of coronavirus, the government’s targets on test and trace,...
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September 2, 2020

Schools and coronavirus, test and trace, maths and reality
As children return to school in England and Wales, we hear about what we know and what we don’t when it comes to Covid-19 risks in school settings. What do the numbers tell us about how well test and trace is working? Will reopening universities really kill 50,000 people? Are the UK’s figures on eco...
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August 26, 2020

Covid plasma therapy
Donald Trump says allowing the emergency use of blood plasma therapy for coronavirus patients will save “countless lives” and is “proven to reduce mortality by 35%”. We look at the evidence. Amid talk of coronavirus being back on the rise in the UK, what does the data show? Could screening for breas...
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August 19, 2020

A-level algorithms, poker and buses
We unpick the A-level algoshambles, discover why 1.3 million Covid tests disappeared from the government's statistics last week, and for reasons that may become clear, we examine the chance of being hit by a bus. Plus, what does poker teach us about the role of randomness in our lives?
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August 15, 2020

Belarus’ contested election
Autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko claims to have won a landslide in the country’s presidential elections. But how can we know what really happened? Tim Harford delves into the numbers behind the widely-questioned election result, with Dr Brian Klaas and political analyst Artyom Shraibman.
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August 12, 2020

Hawaiian Pizza, obesity and a second wave?
Covid-19 cases are rising in the UK - is it a sign of a second wave of the virus? We’re picking apart the data and asking how concerned we should be both now and as autumn approaches. Scotland is undercounting Covid deaths, England is overcounting them: we’ll ask why and whether the problems will be...
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August 8, 2020

Melting Antarctic ice
One More or Less listener has heard that if all the ice in Antarctica melted, global sea levels would rise by 70 metres. But it would take 361 billion tonnes of ice to raise the world's sea levels by just 1 millimetre. So how much ice is in Antarctica? And in the coming years, what impact might te...
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August 1, 2020

Covid in Africa
Do we have enough data to know what’s happening on the continent? We talk to Dr Justin Maeda from the Africa Centre for Disease Control and Ghanaian public health researcher Nana Kofi Quakyi about tracking Africa’s outbreak. Producer: Jo Casserly Picture: Volunteers wait to feed local people during ...
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July 25, 2020

Data in the time of cholera
Tim Harford speaks to Steven Johnson about William Farr and the birth of epidemiology in the 1800s.
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July 18, 2020

Covid misconceptions and US deaths
Tim Harford talks to statistician Ola Rosling about his research into misconceptions about Covid-19. And an update on the epidemic in the US.
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July 11, 2020

Sweden’s lockdown lite
Unlike its Nordic neighbours, Sweden never imposed a lockdown to stem the spread of coronavirus. Tim Harford speaks to statistician Ola Rosling to find out what the results have been. Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Jo Casserly Picture: A woman wearing a face mask stands at a Stockholm bus stop w...
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July 4, 2020

Why Trump is wrong about the USA’s coronavirus case comeback
Are cases really rising in the US or are they just testing more? Tim digs into the data.
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July 1, 2020

Why did the UK have such a bad Covid-19 epidemic?
The UK has suffered one of the worst outbreaks of coronavirus anywhere in the world. We’ve been tracking and analysing the numbers for the last 14 weeks, and in the last programme of this More or Less series, we look back through the events of March 2020 to ask why things went so wrong - was it bad ...
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June 27, 2020

A new Covid-19 drug and a second wave
The steroid Dexamethasone has been hailed a “major breakthrough” in the treatment of Covid-19. But what does the data say? Plus, why haven’t mass protests led to a second wave?
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June 24, 2020

Child Poverty, School Inequality and a Second Wave
As lockdown eases, why hasn't there been a spike in infections? We get a first look at the evidence for the much-trumpeted Covid-19 treatment, Dexamethasone. Stephanie Flanders tells us what’s happening to the UK economy. Keir Starmer says child poverty is up; Boris Johnson says it’s down, who's rig...
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June 20, 2020

Who Should be Quarantined?
Some countries are requiring new arrivals to self-isolate, a policy designed to stop infection spreading from areas of high prevalence to low prevalence. Tim Harford and Ruth Alexander find out which countries have the highest rate of Covid-19 infection. Plus, is it really true that the coronavirus ...
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June 17, 2020

Quarantine, Test and Trace and BODMAS
The UK has introduced new rules requiring all people arriving in the country to self-isolate for 14 days. But given the severity of the UK’s outbreak can there be many places more infectious? Is it true that Covid-19 mostly kills people who would die soon anyway? The first figures are out showing ho...
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June 10, 2020

Antibody tests, early lockdown advice and European deaths
At the start of March the government's Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said that the UK’s coronavirus outbreak was four weeks behind the epidemic in Italy. This ability to watch other countries deal with the disease ahead of us potentially influenced the decisions we made about which a...
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June 6, 2020

Keep your distance
What difference does a metre make? The World Health Organisation recommends that people keep at least 1 metre apart from each other to stop the spread of Covid-19, but different countries have adopted different standards. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends staying six fee...
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June 3, 2020

False negatives, testing capacity and pheasants
As lockdowns begin to lift the government is relying on testing and contact tracing programmes to prevent a second wave of Covid-19 infections. But how accurate are the swab tests used to diagnose the disease? The UK Statistics Authority has criticised the government for the way it reports testin...
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May 27, 2020

Obeying lockdown, flight arrivals and is this wave of the epidemic waning?
More than 35,000 people in the UK have now officially died from Covid-19, but what does the data show about whether this wave of the epidemic is waning? We ask who respects lockdown, who breaks it, and why? Our listeners are astounded by how many people allegedly flew into the UK in the first three...
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May 23, 2020

60 Harvests and statistically savvy parrots
A listener asks if there can really only be 60 harvests left in Earth's soil. Are we heading for an agricultural Armageddon? Plus we meet the parrots who are the first animals, outside humans and great apes, to be shown to understand probability. (image: Kea parrots in New Zealand)
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May 20, 2020

School re-opening, Germany’s Covid-19 success and statistically savvy parrots
Risk expert David Spiegelhalter discusses whether re-opening some schools could be dangerous for children or their teachers. We ask what’s behind Germany’s success in containing the number of deaths from Covid-19. Many governments across the world are borrowing huge sums to prop up their economies d...
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May 16, 2020

Social Distancing and Government Borrowing
As lockdowns start to lift, many countries are relying on social distancing to continue to slow the spread of coronavirus. The UK says we should stay 2 metres apart, the World Health Organisation recommends 1 metre, Canada six feet. So where do these different measurements come from? Plus, govern...
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May 13, 2020

Vitamin D, explaining R and the 2 metre rule
R is one of the most important numbers of the pandemic. But what is it? And how is it estimated? We return to the topic of testing and ask again whether the governments numbers add up. As the government encourages those who can’t work at home to return to their workplaces - we’re relying on social d...
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May 9, 2020

Covid-19 fatality rate
The question of just how dangerous Covid-19 really is, is absolutely crucial. If a large number of those who are infected go on to die, there could be dreadful consequences if we relaxed the lockdowns that have been imposed across much of the world. If the number is smaller, for many countries the w...
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May 5, 2020

Testing truth, fatality rates, obesity risk and trampolines.
The Health Minister Matt Hancock promised the UK would carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April. He claims he succeeded. Did he? The question of just how dangerous the new coronavirus really is, is absolutely crucial. If it’s high, there could be dreadful consequences if we r...
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May 2, 2020

Climate change and birdsong
With much of the world’s population staying indoors, there are fewer cars on the roads, planes in the skies and workplaces and factories open. Will this have an impact on climate change? Plus as the streets become quieter, is it just us, or have the birds begun to sing much more loudly?
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April 29, 2020

Ethnic minority deaths, climate change and lockdown
We continue our mission to use numbers to make sense of the world - pandemic or no pandemic. Are doctors from ethnic minority backgrounds disproportionately affected by Covid-19? Was the lockdown the decisive change which caused daily deaths in the UK to start to decrease? With much of the world’s p...
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April 25, 2020

Comparing countries' coronavirus performance
Many articles in the media compare countries with one another - who’s faring better or worse in the fight against coronavirus? But is this helpful - or, in fact, fair? Tim Harford and Ruth Alexander discuss the limitations that we come across when we try to compare the numbers of Covid-19 cases a...
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April 23, 2020

Bonus Podcast: Professor John Horton Conway
John Horton Conway died in April this year at the age of 82 from Covid-19 related complications. An influential figure in mathematics, Conway’s ideas inspired generations of students around the world. We remember the man and his work with mathematician Matt Parker and Conway’s biographer Siobhan Rob...
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April 22, 2020

Comparing countries, the risk to NHS staff, and birdsong
We compare Covid-19 rates around the world. Headlines say NHS staff are dying in large numbers, how bad is it? And is it just us, or have the birds started singing really loudly?
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April 18, 2020

Superforecasting the Coronavirus
Scientific models disagree wildly as to what the course of the coronavirus pandemic might be. With epidemiologists at odds, Tim Harford asks if professional predictors, the superforecasters, can offer a different perspective. (Image: Coronovirus graphic/Getty images)
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April 11, 2020

Should you wear a face mask?
Do face masks stop you getting coronavirus? You might instinctively think that covering your mouth and nose with cloth must offer protection from Covid-19. And some health authorities around the world say people should make their own masks. But expert opinion is divided. Tim Harford and Ruth Alexand...
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April 8, 2020

Coronavirus deaths, face masks and a potential baby boom
Is the coronavirus related death count misleading because of delays in reporting? Do face masks help prevent the spread of the virus? Was a London park experiencing Glastonbury levels of overcrowding this week? And after reports of condom shortages, we ask whether there’s any evidence that we’re nin...
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April 4, 2020

Are more men dying from coronavirus?
Tim Harford and Ruth Alexander examine the statistics around the world to see if more men are dying as a result of Covid-19, and why different sexes would have different risks. Plus is it true that in the US 40% of hospitalisations were of patients aged between 20 and 50?
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March 31, 2020

Supermarket stockpiling, A-level results and Covid-19 gender disparity
This week, we examine criticisms of Imperial College’s epidemiologists. We ask how A-Level and GCSE grades will be allocated, given that the exams have vanished in a puff of social distancing. Adam Kucharski, author of The Rules of Contagion, tells us about the history of epidemiology. We look at th...
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March 28, 2020

The Risk
Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, puts the risks of Covid-19 into perspective. He found that the proportion of people who get infected by coronavirus, who then go on to die increases with age, and the trend matches almost exactly how o...
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March 25, 2020

Coronavirus Special
We’ve dedicated this special episode to the numbers surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic. Statistical national treasure Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter put the risks of Covid-19 into perspective. We ask whether young people are safe from serious illness, or if statistics from hospitalisations in t...
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March 21, 2020

Mitigation or Suppression: What’s best to tackle Coronavirus?
Last week, while schools and businesses across Europe closed in an attempt to halt the spread of Coronavirus the UK stood alone in a more relaxed approach to the pandemic; letting people choose whether they wanted to go to work, or socially distance themselves. This week, things have changed. School...
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March 14, 2020

The mystery of Iran’s coronavirus numbers
Does Iran have a lot more covid-19 cases that its figures suggest?
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March 9, 2020

How much heat do you lose from your head?
Every winter its the same, someone will tell you to put a hat on to save your body from losing all of its heat. But how much heat do you actually lose from your head? We take you on a journey from arctic conditions to a hot tub in Canada to explain why there might actually be more than one answer......
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February 29, 2020

Netflix vs the environment
Does watching 30 minutes of Netflix have the same carbon footprint as driving four miles?
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February 28, 2020

More or Less: Superforecasting, wood burning stoves and the real story of Hidden Figures
Dipping into the archive for stories on the art of prediction and wood burner pollution
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February 22, 2020

Artificial (not so) Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence – or AI for short – is often depicted in films in the shape of helpful droids, all-knowing computers or even malevolent ‘death bots’. In real life, we’re making leaps and bounds in this technology’s capabilities with satnavs, and voice assistants like Alexa and Siri making fr...
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February 15, 2020

WS More or Less: Coronavirus - The Numbers
A lot has changed since our last episode covering the numbers behind the coronavirus - for a start it now has a name, Covid-19. This week news has broken that deaths are 20 per cent higher than thought, and the number of cases has increased by a third. Tim Harford talks to Dr Nathalie MacDermott, a ...
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February 14, 2020

Coronavirus, jam, AI and tomatoes
Covid-19 stats, spreading jam far and wide, cooking with AI, and James Wong on vegetables
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February 8, 2020

WS More or Less: How fast are Alligators and Hippos?
We all know that you should never smile at a crocodile, but rumour has it that alligators are great perambulators – at least that’s what a booklet about Florida’s wildlife claimed. Tim Harford speaks to John Hutchinson, Professor of evolutionary bio-mechanics to see whether he could outrun one of th...
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February 7, 2020

Tracking terror suspects
Costing counter-terrorism, interrogating tomatoes, the UK's reading age, politics and GDP
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February 1, 2020

WS More or Less: Coronavirus
The WHO have declared a ‘Global Health Emergency’ as health officials are urgently trying to contain the spread of a new coronavirus in China and beyond; but not all the information you read is correct. We fact-check a particularly hyperbolic claim about its spread that’s been doing the rounds on so...
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January 31, 2020

Coronavirus, emotions and guns.
Fact checking claims about coronavirus and whether more guns equal fewer homicides.
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January 25, 2020

WS More or Less: Dozy Science
Anxiety around sleep is widespread. Many of us feel we don’t get enough. An army of experts has sprung up to help, and this week we test some of the claims from one of the most prominent among them: Professor Matthew Walker. He plays ball and answers some of the criticisms of his bestselling book Wh...
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January 24, 2020

Netflix and Chill
The list of ways campaigners say we need to change our behaviour in response to climate change seems to grow every week. Now, streaming video is in the frame. We test the claim that watching 30 minutes of Netflix has the same carbon footprint as driving four miles. We hear scepticism about a report ...
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January 18, 2020

WS More or Less: Japan’s 99% Conviction Rate
The fugitive former Nissan boss, Carlos Ghosn, has raised questions about justice in Japan. The government in Tokyo has defended its system, where 99% of prosecutions lead to conviction. Prof Colin Jones, from Doshisha Law School in Kyoto, explains what's behind this seemingly shocking statistic. An...
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January 17, 2020

Weighing the Cost of Brexit
Is it possible to calculate the cost of Brexit? Gemma Tetlow from the Institute for Government helps us weigh the arguments. How much does luck play into Liverpool FC's amazing season? And, crucially, how fast is an alligator?
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January 11, 2020

WS More or Less: Bushfire mystery
Have a billion animals died in Australia’s fires? And which ones are likely to survive?
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January 10, 2020

Australian Animal Deaths, Carbon Emissions, Election Mystery
Tim Harford on animal deaths in Australia's fires, how many Labour voters went Conservative and are UK carbon emissions really down 40%. Plus: have we really entered a new decade?
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January 4, 2020

C-sections and sharks
How many women in China give birth in hospitals, and whether it was true that 50% of births there are delivered by caesarean section. Oh, and we also mention guts and bacteria… Sharks kill 12 humans a year but humans kill 11,417 sharks an hour. That’s the statistic used in a Facebook meme that’s do...
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December 28, 2019

Presidential candidates and dementia
We talk about the age of some of the frontrunners in the Democrat nomination race and President Donald Trump and the health risks they face. Also, More or Less listeners were surprised by a claim they read on the BBC website recently: “Pets are estimated to be consuming up to 20 percent of all meat...
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December 20, 2019

The Simpsons and maths
We explore the maths secrets of The Simpsons on their 30th anniversary.
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December 13, 2019

Koalas
As bushfires rage in Australia, the plight of the koala made front-page news around the world. There were warnings that fires wiped out 80% of the marsupial's habitat and that koalas are facing extinction. We check the claims with the help of National Geographic's Natasha Daly and Dr Christine Ho...
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December 10, 2019

Election Special (2/2)
Labour's spending plans, Conservatives claims on homelessness, the SNP's education record
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December 6, 2019

Tree Planting Pledges
The UK General Election is fast approaching, top of the agenda are the political parties green ambitions and one particular initiative is garnering a lot of attention, tree planting. The Labour Party has the most ambitious target – a whopping 2 billion trees planted by 2040. How much land would this...
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December 3, 2019

Election Special 1/2
50,000 nurses? 40 new hospitals? Big corporate tax rises? Childcare promises? Election pledges might sound good, but do they stand up to scrutiny? In the run up to the General Election on 12th December, Tim Harford takes his scalpel of truth to the inflamed appendix of misinformation. Presenter: T...
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November 29, 2019

Testing tomatoes
Have these saucy fruits become less healthy over time?
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November 23, 2019

The world’s busiest shipping lanes
A listener wrote in asking which is the busiest shipping lane in the world. Ruth Alexander tries to find out with sea traffic analyst and former captain, Amrit Singh and Jean Tournadre, a researcher that uses satellite date to ships. Producer: Darin Graham Editor: Richard Vadon Image: Freighter s...
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November 15, 2019

Bolivia: Can statistics help detect electoral fraud?
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s longest-serving leader and first indigenous president, stepped down last week amid weeks of protests sparked by a dispute over a recent presidential election in the country. His opponents say the election was rigged but the embattled former president said it was a cunning coup...
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November 9, 2019

Reducing your risk of death
Two statistics about reducing your risk of an early death made headlines around the world recently. The first seems to be a great reason to add a four-legged friend to your life. It suggests that owning a dog is tied to lowering your chance of dying early by nearly a quarter. The second statistic ...
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November 1, 2019

Unbelievable: The forgotten rape data
In the United States, some police jurisdictions didn’t send off DNA evidence from people who were raped for testing in a crime lab and for uploading into a national criminal database. Instead, the sets of evidence, known as rape kits, were sat on shelves and in warehouses. It’s estimated that hund...
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October 28, 2019

Edith Abbott and crime statistics
Social worker and economist Edith Abbott and her contribution to crime statistics.
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October 18, 2019

Esther Duflo and women in economics
Discussing Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer’s economics Nobel Prize.
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October 11, 2019

The Extra Episode: Minimum wage, drinking in Scotland and identical twins.
We explore the numbers behind the new minimum wage announcements, whether drinking is going up or down in Scotland, the truth about squeezing people onto the Isle of Wight and how long one identical twin lives after the other twin dies. You’ll want to hear our special extra episode.
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October 7, 2019

WS More or Less: Does San Francisco have more rough sleepers than Britain?
Are the shocking statistics true? and how do you count people who don't wish to be found?
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October 4, 2019

New hospitals promised, aid to Ukraine, and bacon sandwiches
Dissecting the government’s hospitals announcement and President Trump’s Ukraine claims.
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September 30, 2019

WS More or Less: Who fought in World War 1?
Were a third of those that fought for Britain in WW1 black or Asian?
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September 27, 2019

Austerity Deaths, C-Sections and being struck by lightning
Has Austerity caused 120 thousand deaths in the UK and does God hate men?
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September 23, 2019

WS More or Less: Peaty v. Bolt: Which is the greatest world record?
Using statistics to compare world records in athletics and swimming.
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September 20, 2019

Dementia, inflation and shark deaths
Health risks for Presidential hopefuls, falling inflation, shark deaths and salary claims
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September 16, 2019

WS More or Less: Cape Town murders
Are eight people a day murdered in Cape Town and is that number unusually high?
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September 13, 2019

Maternal deaths, taxi driver earnings and statistical pop music
Are black women five times more likely to die in childbirth? Plus making pop music.
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September 9, 2019

WS More or Less: Deforestation in Brazil
Has it increased significantly since President Bolsonaro took office in January?
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September 6, 2019

Climate deaths, austerity and pet food
Challenging the idea of six billion deaths due to climate change; plus what pets eat.
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September 2, 2019

WS More or Less: Amazon forest fires
Are they really 85 percent worse than last year?
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August 30, 2019

Amazon fires, state pension and American burgers
Are forest fires in Brazil the worst in recent times? What is the state pension worth?
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August 26, 2019

WS More or Less: Ethiopia’s 350m trees in a day
Were millions of trees planted in just one day in Ethiopia?
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August 23, 2019

Exam grades, Chernobyl and Ethiopian trees
Was your A Level grade correct? Plus were 350m trees planted in one day in Ethiopia?
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August 16, 2019

Mice and mind blowing maths
Re-inserting a caveat and discussing a really cool numbers trick.
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August 9, 2019

Immigrant Crime Rate in the US
Do immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans in the United States?
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August 2, 2019

The spread of fact-checking in Africa
With misinformation so easy to spread, how can it be stopped or challenged?
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July 26, 2019

Pregnancy prohibitions – the evidence
Taking a statistical look at what expectant mothers should avoid.
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July 19, 2019

Missing women from drug trials
How medical testing on just men causes problems.
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July 19, 2019

Zimbabwe’s economy: Are sanctions to blame?
We look at politicians’ claims that sanctions are to blame for Zimbabwe’s difficulties.
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July 5, 2019

Two World Cups: Football and Cricket
On this week’s More or Less, Ruth Alexander looks at the numbers involved with the two world cups that are going on at the moment. Are more men than women watching the Women’s World Cup and how accurate is the Cricket World Cup rule of thumb that suggests if you double the score after 30 overs you...
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June 28, 2019

Is nuclear power actually safer than you think?
We questioned the death count of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in last week’s More or Less podcast. In the end, Professor Jim Smith of Portsmouth University came up with an estimate of 15,000 deaths. But we wondered how deadly nuclear power is overall when compared to other energy sources? Dr Han...
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June 21, 2019

Questioning the Chernobyl disaster death count
The recent TV miniseries ‘Chernobyl’ has stirred up debate online about the accuracy of its portrayal of the explosion at a nuclear power plant in the former Soviet state of Ukraine. We fact-check the programme and try and explain why it so hard to say how many people will die because of the Chernob...
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June 14, 2019

WS More or Less: Dealing with the Numbers of Cancer
How one woman used statistics to help cope with cancer.
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June 10, 2019

WS More or Less: The things we fail to see
The hidden influences that a make a big difference to the way the world works.
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June 7, 2019

Are married women flipping miserable?
Measuring happiness, university access in Scotland, plus will one in two get cancer?
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June 3, 2019

WS More or Less: Volcanoes versus humans
Does Mount Etna produce more carbon emissions than humans? We check the numbers.
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May 31, 2019

Hay Festival Special
What does it mean to say that the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world?
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May 27, 2019

WS More or Less: Florence Nightingale – recognising the nurse statistician
How collecting data about the dead led the famous nurse to promote better sanitation.
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May 24, 2019

Eurovision and fact-checking Naomi Wolf
The stats behind making a successful song, plus misunderstanding Victorian court records.
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May 20, 2019

Making music out of Money
Data visualisation is all the rage, but where does that leave the old-fashioned values of audio? Some data visualisation experts are starting to explore the benefits of turning pictures into sound. Financial Times journalist Alan Smith plays his musical interpretation of a chart depicting the yield-...
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May 17, 2019

Heart deaths, Organised crime and Gender data gaps
Are deaths from heart disease on the rise? This week the British Heart Foundation had us all stopping mid-biscuit with the news that the number of under 75s dying from cardiovascular disease is going up for the first time in half a century. It sounds like bad news – but is it? Does Huawei contribu...
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May 13, 2019

Sex Every Seven Seconds
We revisit some classic topics from past years. We hear which statistics about sex you should trust, and which are less robust. Do men think about sex every seven seconds? Plus, did the arrival of royal baby Princess Charlotte really contribute to the British economy?
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May 10, 2019

Sex, coal, missing people and mice
Sex Recession This week it was reported that British people are having less sex than they used to. Similar statistics are cropping up elsewhere in the world too. But one US stat seemed particularly stark: the number of young men having no sex at all in the past year has tripled in a decade. But is i...
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May 6, 2019

Avengers - Should we reverse the snap?
*Spoiler-free for Avengers: Endgame* At the end of Avengers: Infinity War film the villain, Thanos, snapped his fingers in the magical infinity gauntlet and disintegrated half of all life across the universe. The Avengers want to reverse the snap but would it better for mankind to live in a world wi...
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May 3, 2019

Nurses, flatmates and cats
Nurse suicide rates There were some worrying figures in the news this week about the number of nurses in England and Wales who died by suicide over the last seven years. We try to work out what the numbers are really telling us. Are 27 million birds killed a year by cats? Newspapers reported thi...
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April 29, 2019

Bernie Sanders and the cost of having a baby
Bernie Sanders, a Senator in the United States and one of the front-runners in the campaign to be the Democratic presidential candidate, said on Twitter that it costs $12,000 to have a baby in his country. He compared that figure to Finland, where he said it costs $60. In this edition of More or Les...
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April 26, 2019

Hottest Easter, Insects, Scottish villages
Was it a surprise that Easter Monday was so hot? A heatwave struck the UK over Easter – and in fact Easter Monday was declared the hottest on record in the UK. But listeners asked - is it that surprising that it was the warmest when the date fell so late in April? We crunch the numbers supplied by ...
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April 19, 2019

The economic impact of mega sporting events
The Olympic Games and the football World Cup, two of the biggest events in the world which are each hosted every four years, are big business. And it costs a lot of money to host them, and a lot of the money comes from public funds. In this week’s edition of More or Less, we’ll be finding out – afte...
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April 15, 2019

Where is Scotland’s highest village?
A battle is brewing in the Southern Scottish uplands between two rival villages. How can statistics help determine which village should take the crown? Wanlockhead and Leadhills both lay claim to the title of Scotland’s highest village but there can only be one winner. More or Less attempts to settl...
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April 8, 2019

Rounding up the weed killer cancer conundrum
A recent scientific review claims the weed killer glyphosate raises the risk of developing the cancer non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41 percent. But deciding what causes cancer can be complicated and there are lots of people and organisations on different sides arguing for against this. So in this edition ...
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April 2, 2019

Chess cheats and the GOAT
Who is the greatest chess player in history? And what does the answer have to do with a story of a chess cheating school from Texas? In this week’s More or Less, the BBC’s numbers programme, David Edmonds finds out what a statistical analysis of chess moves can teach us about this ancient board ga...
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March 25, 2019

Is Mansa Musa the richest person of all time?
Mansa Musa, the 14th century Mali king, has nothing on Jeff Bezos - read one recent news report. Musa set off on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in the 1300s and it’s said he left with a caravan of 60,000 people. Among them were soldiers, entertainers, merchants and slaves. A train of camels followed, ...
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March 18, 2019

Day light saving time and heart attacks
Does the sudden loss of an hour of sleep raise the risk of having a heart attack?
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March 9, 2019

The gender gap in tech
Are women really less likely than men to be hired for jobs in tech just because of their sex? A study claims that sexism in the recruitment process is holding women back from entering the tech sector. But the study is not all it seems. There are much better statistics that can help explain why fewer...
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March 4, 2019

Insectageddon
Insects live all around us and if a recent scientific review is anything to go by, then they are on the path to extinction. The analysis found that more than 40 percent of insect species are decreasing and that a decline rate of 2.5 percent a year suggests they could disappear in one hundred years. ...
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February 22, 2019

How To Make Your Art Work More Valuable
Die, sell on a sunny day, place your work a third of the way through the auction….There are some surprising factors that can affect the price of an art work. Here are six top tips on how to get the best price for your art or, for art buyers, how to make a big return on your investment. Presenter: ...
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February 18, 2019

WS More or Less: When maths mistakes really matter
Tim Harford talks to Matt Parker on how simple maths mistakes can cause big problems.
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February 15, 2019

Climate Change, Victorian Diseases, Alcohol
Tim Harford on climate change, Victorian diseases, maths mistakes and alcohol consumption
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February 12, 2019

WS More or Less: From the archives: Groundhogs and Kings
Who can better forecast the weather – meteorologists or a rodent? What percentage of the English public are related to King Edward the III, and is malnutrition really on the rise in the UK? Sit back, relax and enjoy some of the good stuff from the More or Less archives.
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February 8, 2019

Teen Suicide; Brexit Business Moves; Wood-Burner Pollution
Tim Harford finds untrue a recent report that there is a 'suicidal generation' of teens.
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February 4, 2019

WS More or Less: You have 15,000 likes!
A listener doubts her popularity on the dating app Tinder. We investigate the numbers.
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February 1, 2019

Holocaust Deniers; Venezuelan Hyperinflation; Tinder Likes
Tim Harford on Holocaust deniers; food prices in Venezuela, and dating app statistics
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January 26, 2019

WS More or Less: Is Suicide Seasonal?
Tim Harford asks which times of the year are riskiest for suicide.
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January 25, 2019

Domestic Violence, Jobs, Easter Snowfall
Tim Harford on domestic violence, employment numbers, and the chance of a white Easter.
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January 19, 2019

WS More or Less: Close Encounters of a Planetary Kind
Which planet is closest to Earth?
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January 18, 2019

Intersex Numbers, Fact-Checking Facebook, Jack Bogle
Tim Harford asks whether 1.7% of people are intersex, and examines false claims about MPs
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January 11, 2019

WS More or Less: The Mathematics of Fever
We look at the numbers behind body temperature – what is normal?
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January 11, 2019

Sugar, Outdoors Play and Planets
Tim Harford on sugar, train fares, children's outdoors play and Earth's closest neighbour
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January 4, 2019

WS More or Less: Numbers of the Year Part 2
Helena Merriman with numbers about water shortage, plastic recycling and American jobs.
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December 29, 2018

WS More or Less: Numbers of the Year Part 1
The numbers that made 2018.
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December 22, 2018

WS More or Less: Mission Impossible - Quantifiying Santa
What to look out for on Christmas Eve.
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December 17, 2018

WS More or Less: Dam Lies and Statistics
Are mega-dams really sustainable?
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November 30, 2018

WS More or Less: Sex and Heart Attacks
Are women more likely to die from a heart attack than men?
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November 23, 2018

WS More or Less: Are 90% of War Fatalities Civilians?
Xavier Zapata examines what the data tells us about the deadly impact of war on civilians
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November 16, 2018

WS More or Less: When’s a Kilogram Not a Kilogram?
Updating the kilogram.
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November 9, 2018

WS More or Less: Do Assassinations Work?
How likely are assassination attempts on heads of state to succeed?
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October 28, 2018

WS More or Less: Vaccines - The importance of the herd and social media
What proportion of a population needs to be vaccinated to stop a disease spreading?
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October 19, 2018

WS More or Less: Foreign Aid: Who’s the most generous?
In foreign aid terms what’s the best way of measuring how generous a country is?
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October 12, 2018

WS More or Less: Paul Romer and William Nordhaus’ Big Ideas
The economists tackling climate change and growth.
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October 9, 2018

Loneliness, School Funding, Same-Sex Divorce
New figures reveal that same-sex divorce rates are much higher among women than among men. The pattern is the same in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK. Everywhere where there are statistics on same-sex divorce it is the same sex doing the bulk of the divorcing. Tim Harford discuss...
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October 7, 2018

WS More or Less: Why are Lesbians More Likely to Divorce than Gay Men?
New figures reveal that same-sex divorce rates are much higher among women than among men. The pattern is the same in Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the UK. Everywhere where there are statistics on same-sex divorce it is the same sex doing the bulk of the divorcing. Tim Harford discuss...
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October 5, 2018

Loneliness; School Funding; Same-Sex Divorce.
This week BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind programme announced the results of The Loneliness Experiment. It was a large survey conducted by the programme in collaboration with the Wellcome Collection. The largest survey into the issue of loneliness to date, said All in the Mind, while the accompanying ...
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October 1, 2018

WS More of Less: Surviving the Battle of Britain
Were Spitfire pilots killed after an average of four weeks in the World War Two battle?
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September 28, 2018

Surviving the Battle of Britain; the World Cup and Domestic Violence; Buckfast and Arrests in Scotland
Tim Harford on Spitfire pilots, and whether football triggers violence in the home.
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September 24, 2018

WS More or Less: Trump and the Puerto Rico Death Toll
How can we calculate excess mortality after a natural disaster?
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September 21, 2018

How Many Schoolchildren are Carers? Shareholder Income, and Museum Visitors Vs Football Fans
Tim Harford on child carers, shareholder income, football vs museums and dangerous sports
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September 17, 2018

WS More or Less: DNA - Are You More Chimp or Neanderthal?
What is the difference between 96% similarity or sharing 20% of our DNA?
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September 14, 2018

Male suicide, school ratings, are female tennis players treated unfairly by umpires?
Tim Harford with statistics on suicide, good schools and sexism in tennis. Plus goats
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September 10, 2018

WS More or Less: The Safest Car in the World?
A listener asks whether his Volvo is the safest car on the road?
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September 7, 2018

Heart Age Calculator; Danish Sperm Imports; Counting Goats
Tim Harford questions the usefulness of a popular heart age calculator.
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September 3, 2018

WS: More or Less - How well do you understand your world?
Tim Harford talks to Bobby Duffy about why we are often wrong about a lot of basic facts
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August 31, 2018

African Trade Tariffs; Alcohol Safe Limits; President Trump's Popularity
Tim Harford fact checks EU trade deals with Africa, and whether one drink is one too many
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August 29, 2018

BONUS PODCAST: Economics with Subtitles - Coffins Full of Car Keys
BONUS PODCAST: For the rest of August, in addition to More or Less you’ll get a brand new podcast, Economics with Subtitles. It’s your everyday guide to economics and why you should care. In this edition, Ayeisha and Steve make sense of interest rates. Why did they lead to coffins full of car gettin...
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August 27, 2018

WS: More or Less - Automated fact-checking
Computer programmes are being developed to combat fake news.
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August 24, 2018

A no-frills life, automated fact-checking and Lord-of-the-Rings maths
What would have been the most efficient way to get to Mordor?
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August 22, 2018

BONUS PODCAST: Economics with Subtitles - How Condoms Can Cost a Week’s Wages
BONUS PODCAST: For the rest of August, in addition to More or Less you’ll get a brand new podcast, Economics with Subtitles. It’s your everyday guide to economics and why you should care. In this show, Ayeisha and Steve make sense of inflation. They’ll explain how hyperinflation is affecting how Ven...
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