More or Less: Behind the Stats
Tim Harford and the More or Less team try to make sense of the statistics which surround us. From BBC Radio 4
Episodes (53)
Will the world really be 50 million workers short by 2030?
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says the world faces a severe labour shortage – 50 million workers by the end of the decade.
The boss of the world’s most valuable company thinks humanoid robots will be needed...
The boss of the world’s most valuable company thinks humanoid robots will be needed...
Are Afghan nationals more likely to be convicted of sexual offences?
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news. This week:Is it true that interest payments on the UK’s national debt are equivalent to £240 per month for everyone in the country?Reform UK claim...
Do 11,000 sharks die every hour?
Hollywood has given sharks a terrible reputation. But in reality, the finned fish should be far more scared of us, than we of them.Millions of sharks are killed in fishing nets and lines every...
Are self-driving cars safer than cars with drivers?
Fully autonomous cars are here. In a handful of cities across the US and China, robotaxis are transporting human passengers around town, but with no human behind the wheel.Loyal Listener Amberish...
Do women feel the cold more than men?
Are office temperatures set too low in the summer for women to be comfortable? This idea has featured in news headlines and comedy videos which describe the summer as a “women’s winter”.But is there...
How weird was the Med Sea heatwave?
In early July, the Mediterranean Sea experienced a marine heatwave. The surface of the water reached temperatures of 30 degrees in some places.
A social media post at the time claimed that some of...
A social media post at the time claimed that some of...
Why it matters that Trump fired data chief
On Friday 1st August the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put out their job report data for August. It included revisions to their estimates for the jobs created in May and June which stated there were...
Are abortion numbers rising in the US?
In June 2022 the United States Supreme Court passed what became known as ‘the Dobbs decision’. In doing so they overturned the long standing constitutional right for women to access abortion in the...
Does a single AI query use a bottle of water?
We’re living through boom-times for Artificial Intelligence, with more and more of us using AI assistants like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Copilot to do basic research and writing tasks. But what is...
Are one in six children living through war?
In the midst of the television coverage of Soccer Aid, a celebrity soccer match organised by Unicef, the audience was told that “one in six children around the world are currently living through war”....
Why Manchester United can afford to play badly
Manchester United are terrible, even according to their own manager. Last season saw their worst ever performance in Premier League history.But at the same time, according to Forbes magazine, they’re...
Can drinking one less bottle of coke a day halve obesity?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:Is the secret to halving obesity rates really just a matter of cutting back on one fizzy drink a day?How many new babies...
The economics of war: Vikings, Conquistadors and Vietnam
How does economics help us understand conflicts through history? That’s the question that economist and journalist Duncan Weldon tries to answer in his new book, Blood and Treasure. Tim talks to...
Is the UK seeing a Christian revival?
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. This week:Is church-going making a comeback in the UK?Is it true that every day, 1000 people begin claiming personal independence...
Has Russia suffered a million casualties in the Ukraine war?
It’s been over three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the human toll is growing on both sides.Recently, politicians and journalists have declared a grim milestone, one million...
Why is data on grooming gangs so bad?
Tim Harford looks at some of the numbers in the news and in life. In this episode:Why is the data on the ethnicity of grooming gangs of such poor quality?Iran has apparently enriched uranium to 60%,...
How to spot a suspicious statistic
Untruths sneak into our lives in all kinds of ways. Sometimes they’re outright lies. Blatant misinformation. But in this episode, we’re going to talk about something else - those sneaky numbers and...
Are 4% of young women in the UK on OnlyFans?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news, and in life. This week:We debunk a false claim that the hotel bill for immigrants is the size of the tax bill for Manchester.An article in the...
Could you be hit by a falling satellite?
The number of satellites orbiting our planet has been rapidly increasing in recent years. But what are the risks when they start falling back down to earth?The European Space agency estimate that by...
How do you make something 10-times more lethal?
What does the government mean when it commits to developing a “10-times more lethal” army? Why was the much-missed Sycamore Gap tree said to be worth a strikingly exact £622,191? Are there really...
Is the world’s population being miscounted?
Exactly how many people live on our planet is one of those difficult-to-answer questions. The UN estimates is 8.2 billion, but that’s largely based on census data, which is certainly not a perfect...
Does the average American have fewer than three friends?
Tim Harford is here to sprinkle a refreshing shower of statistical insight over the parched lawns of misinformation.This week, we try to unpick the confusion over a claim made by London Mayor Sadiq...
Factchecking the Trump administration’s Autism claims
Picking Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known vaccine sceptic, as the Secretary for Public Health might not be the most ‘out there’ thing the Trump administration has done but it certainly raised some...
Is the UN underestimating the global fall in fertility?
Every two years, the UN release their predictions for the future population of humanity – currently expected to peak in the 2080s at around 10.3 billion people.One of the things they use to work this...
How dead is the internet?
In the early 2020s, a conspiracy theory started circulating online known as the “dead internet theory”. This suggested that, instead of a vibrant digital super-community where people freely share...
Warren Buffett’s brilliant bets
Warren Buffett has announced he is stepping down as CEO of his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett is one of the richest people in the world, and is widely held up as the greatest investor who ever...
Bonus episode: The Autism Curve
An interruption to your regular podcast feed: the first episode of a new BBC Radio 4 series investigating the steep rise in autism diagnoses. The Autism Curve looks into the data that has prompted...
Donald Trump: 100 days fact-check
On the 29th April US President Donald Trump took to the stage in Michigan to celebrate his first 100 days in office. This is a milestone in American politics, but is everything he claims the...
Are 80% of women really only attracted to 20% of men?
Netflix’s psychological drama Adolescence has started a debate about teenage boys and misogyny in modern society. It tells the story of a seemingly normal young boy, Jamie, who is arrested after the...
The pioneers of proof
Here are More or Less we’ll all about the facts. Every day we use a toolkit of known proofs to try and answer our listeners’ questions. But who do we have to thank for this toolkit and how did they...
How much is a human life worth?
What is the cash value of a human life? That’s the question at the heart of The Price of Life, a book by journalist Jenny Kleeman.
It turns out that there’s not just one price, there are many -...
It turns out that there’s not just one price, there are many -...
The mistake in Trump’s tariff formula
What is the error in the calculation Donald Trump used to work out his new tariffs?What happened when the government ordered a recount of bobbies on the beat?When is a tax freeze not a tax freeze?And...
Trump tariffs: All about the deficits
US President Donald Trump has announced sweeping tariffs on global trade, adding taxes of as much as 50% to imports from some countries. The tariffs, he says, are “reciprocal” – calculated to address...
Is one in four people in the UK disabled?
Donald Trump is raising tariffs on Canada, but has his northern neighbour done anything to deserve them?In her Spring Statement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced that the UK’s fiscal “headroom” was,...
What’s Trump’s problem with Canada?
Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours, and since the end of the Second World War that’s exactly what the US and Canada have been. They’ve enjoyed free trade agreements, close knit economic ties...
Could a 2% wealth tax raise £24bn?
Some Labour politicians have been calling for a wealth tax, claiming a 2% tax could raise £24bn. Where are the numbers from and do they add up? A listener asked why housing in the UK is the oldest in...
What are the chances of an asteroid hitting earth in 2032?
On 27 December 2024, astronomers spotted an asteroid that was potentially heading towards earth.
Named 2024 YR4, it was estimated to be between 40m and 90m across, with the potential to cause...
Named 2024 YR4, it was estimated to be between 40m and 90m across, with the potential to cause...
Why are more people claiming disability benefits?
More working age people are claiming disability benefits. What's driving the trend?Is it true that the UK imprisons more people for their social media posts than Russia does?One of the country’s most...
How did lockdown impact children?
In March 2020, the covid pandemic forced the UK into lockdown. Schools closed, universities went online and the economy shut down.It slowly became clear that young people were not falling victim to...
What is an IQ map and can we trust them?
You may have seen a map circulated on social media that claims to show the average IQ of different nations. If you look closely these numbers vary dramatically, with incredibly low scores in...
DOGE, apples and irregular migrants
It’s been 12 weeks since President Trump announced the formation of DOGE, the so-called department of Government efficiency. We fact-check various claims connected with the drive to route out...
Is there really $500bn of Rare Earths in Ukraine?
As part of the fast-moving argument over US military support to Ukraine, the US demanded $500bn worth of access to what was variously reported as Ukraine’s rare earths or rare metals or rare minerals....
Defence Spending, Rare Earths and Trunk Truths
Has the US really sent Ukraine $350 billion for its war effort? Is a $500billion cut of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals a good deal? How will the UK fund the governments ambitions to raise defence...
Has the US really given Ukraine more aid than Europe?
As negotiations to end the Ukraine war rumble on, Donald Trump seems equally interested in talking about the past, repeatedly claiming that the US has given much more aid to Ukraine than Europe has,...
Are 150 year olds getting social security payments?
Last week Elon Musk revealed that he had been through the Social Security Agencies database and found millions of people aged over 100. The vast majority of these people are dead, but their accounts...
Has the US sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza?
On the 25th January, the US Press Secretary announced that in their bid to stop ‘fraud’ and waste DOGE had cancelled $50 million worth of condoms being sent to Gaza by the United States Agency for...
Are black babies in the US really more likely to die under the care of white doctors?
Babies born in the US to Black Hispanic or African American mothers are more likely to die than any other ethnic group in America. That is a fact. But the reason why this happens is unclear. In 2020 a...
Are quantum computers already super-powerful?
Google claim their latest quantum computer chip is able to process something in five minutes it would take a normal computer 10 septillion years to figure out.As this is a massive amount longer than...
Did Trump make billions with his meme-coin?
Just before being inaugurated as US president for the second time, Donald Trump launched something called a “meme-coin”.
This is a bespoke cryptocurrency token featuring a picture of Donald Trump. A...
This is a bespoke cryptocurrency token featuring a picture of Donald Trump. A...
Can redheads handle 25% more pain than brunettes?
What has the colour of your hair got to do with your capacity to withstand pain? We investigate the claim, which regularly circulates on social media, that natural redheads are 25% tougher than their...
Do 79% of Swedish asylum seekers go on holiday to the country they fled from?
The claim that 79% of asylum seekers in Sweden go on holiday in their home country has been repeated regularly on social media.
It’s used to argue that recent refugees are being disingenuous about...
It’s used to argue that recent refugees are being disingenuous about...
Numbers of the year part 2
We asked and you responded, this edition of ‘numbers of the year’ are from you. our loyal listeners. We scoured the inboxes to find three fascinating numbers that say something about the world we live...
Numbers of the year 2024
It’s that time of year again, the time when we ask some of our favourite statistically-inclined people for their numbers of the year.
We present them to you - from falling birth rates in India to...
We present them to you - from falling birth rates in India to...
About this Podcast
Copyright
(C) BBC 2025
Language
en
Categories
Science, Mathematics, News, News Commentary