More or Less

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 Economics, who specialises in the economics of sex and love, answers questions posed by a curious More...

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 the galaxy? And would planes be much lighter if they didn’t bother with windows? Maths Professor Han...

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 treatment. Are patients always given the facts – and the time - they need to make rational decisions? And...

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, the media has been claiming that the odds of having identical triplets are one in 200 million – we are...

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 supermarket choosing sanitary items. Getty Images)

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 measuring fuel poverty. Plus after the Texas school shooting we investigate the statistics around gun dea...

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 Judgement, in which he outlines how a multitude of often irrelevant factors influence important decision...

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-place finish? The global economy has been putting the squeeze on many of us this year. Various factors...

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? We look into this and the claim that the pandemic pushed South African stress levels up by 56%. Wi...

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 debate that’s erupted in India over the figures. (man puzzled at blackboard. Credit: Getty images)

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 the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK.

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 Less, Tim Harford and journalist Keith Moore carve a nuanced path through one of the pandemic’s most...

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 sense of modern India, from basic questions like average income to the huge challenges of keeping track...

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 tightrope walk authors Chip Heath and Karla Starr have explored in their new book ‘Making Numbers Count’....

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 gives us surprising insight into how boiling water for tea accidentally improved public health. Prese...

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 figure to determine what the real impact might be.

After pursuing a largely successful ‘Zero-Covid’ strategy for two years, Hong Kong has now suffered one of the worst Covid death rates in the whole of the pandemic. But what are the numbers that explain this surprising vulnerability? Tim Harford spoke to Professor Ben Cowling from the University of Hong Kong to talk about the nuances of vaccination rates, Hong Kong’s ageing population, and the imp...

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 Barry Nalebuff about his new book, “Split the Pie”. Presenter:Tim Harford Producer: Lizzy McNeill

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 Slovakia almost 100,000. In comparison the UK has issued visa’s to just under 1000 people. Some say this...

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 the world.

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 data? We investigate the perplexing claim that the Chagos Islands are 100 metres below sea level. How...

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 lockdowns have only reduced Covid-19 mortality by 0.2%, or one death in five hundred. We examine the evide...

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 at a research paper that says almost none. Plus, is Elon Musk right to warn of a global population col...

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 at the data behind child hospitalisations and deaths due to Covid19.

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 examine the joys and sorrows of modelling the spread of the virus. Do MPs understand how false positive ra...