BBC Radio 4

More or Less

Science EN ↓ 1107 episodes

Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life.

Author

BBC Radio 4

Category

Science

Podcast website

www.bbc.co.uk

Latest episode

Jul 11, 2026

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Episodes

WS More or Less: Who fought in World War 1? 30.09.2019

Were a third of those that fought for Britain in WW1 black or Asian?

Austerity Deaths, C-Sections and being struck by lightning 27.09.2019

Has Austerity caused 120 thousand deaths in the UK and does God hate men?

WS More or Less: Peaty v. Bolt: Which is the greatest world record? 23.09.2019

Using statistics to compare world records in athletics and swimming.

Dementia, inflation and shark deaths 20.09.2019

Health risks for Presidential hopefuls, falling inflation, shark deaths and salary claims

WS More or Less: Cape Town murders 16.09.2019

Are eight people a day murdered in Cape Town and is that number unusually high?

Maternal deaths, taxi driver earnings and statistical pop music 13.09.2019

Are black women five times more likely to die in childbirth? Plus making pop music.

WS More or Less: Deforestation in Brazil 09.09.2019

Has it increased significantly since President Bolsonaro took office in January?

Climate deaths, austerity and pet food 06.09.2019

Challenging the idea of six billion deaths due to climate change; plus what pets eat.

WS More or Less: Amazon forest fires 02.09.2019

Are they really 85 percent worse than last year?

Amazon fires, state pension and American burgers 30.08.2019

Are forest fires in Brazil the worst in recent times? What is the state pension worth?

WS More or Less: Ethiopia’s 350m trees in a day 26.08.2019

Were millions of trees planted in just one day in Ethiopia?

Exam grades, Chernobyl and Ethiopian trees 23.08.2019

Was your A Level grade correct? Plus were 350m trees planted in one day in Ethiopia?

Mice and mind blowing maths 16.08.2019

Re-inserting a caveat and discussing a really cool numbers trick.

Immigrant Crime Rate in the US 09.08.2019

Do immigrants commit more crime than native-born Americans in the United States?

The spread of fact-checking in Africa 02.08.2019

With misinformation so easy to spread, how can it be stopped or challenged?

Pregnancy prohibitions – the evidence 26.07.2019

Taking a statistical look at what expectant mothers should avoid.

Missing women from drug trials 19.07.2019

How medical testing on just men causes problems.

Zimbabwe’s economy: Are sanctions to blame? 19.07.2019

We look at politicians’ claims that sanctions are to blame for Zimbabwe’s difficulties.

Two World Cups: Football and Cricket 05.07.2019

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 get a good estimate of the final innings total? Producer: Richard Vadon Image: Cricket World Cup Trop...

Is nuclear power actually safer than you think? 28.06.2019

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 Hannah Ritchie of the University of Oxford joins Charlotte McDonald to explore. Image:Chernobyl nuclear p...

Questioning the Chernobyl disaster death count 21.06.2019

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 Chernobyl disaster. Image: Chernobyl nuclear power plant a few weeks after the disaster. Credit: Getty Imag...

WS More or Less: Dealing with the Numbers of Cancer 14.06.2019

How one woman used statistics to help cope with cancer.

WS More or Less: The things we fail to see 10.06.2019

The hidden influences that a make a big difference to the way the world works.

Are married women flipping miserable? 07.06.2019

Measuring happiness, university access in Scotland, plus will one in two get cancer?

WS More or Less: Volcanoes versus humans 03.06.2019

Does Mount Etna produce more carbon emissions than humans? We check the numbers.

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