Castuner

More or Less

BBC Radio 4

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

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Episodes

1,153 episodes

  1. Are French school protesters right to say education is underfunded? 8:58
  2. Europe's witch trials: The numbers behind the myth 8:58
  3. Terence Tao: Maths ‘the canary in the coal mine’ on AI 10:36
  4. Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres stop disinformation bots? 8:58
  5. Fact-check: Will Scottish pensioners really be funding English social care? 29:10
  6. Fact-check: Is China missing a billion people? 8:58
  7. Is the UK state pension really the lowest in Europe? 28:42
  8. The Uzbekistan-shaped hole in an influential climate cost paper 8:59
  9. Does the UK really have nine out of the ten poorest regions in Northern Europe? 30:22
  10. Trump fact-check: Do the US and Venezuela have 60% of the world’s oil? 9:01
  11. Has the UK’s productivity puzzle been solved? 29:04
  12. Are carrots becoming less nutritious? 8:58
  13. Are bad teeth the number one reason kids go to A&E? 28:28
  14. Could this be the strongest El Niño in 1,000 Years? 8:57
  15. Why are so many ex-prisoners being sent back to prison? 28:31
  16. Is every card shuffle unique? 8:58
  17. Bonus podcast: Norman Numbers 6:44
  18. Do Germans really take 19.5 days of sick leave per year? 8:58
  19. How much of the world isn’t owned by anyone? 8:58
  20. 14 million deaths or zero deaths? The impact of the USAID cuts 8:58
  21. How much of all the money in the world does Elon Musk have? 8:58
  22. Would you take £50,000 or a 50/50 chance of £1m? 8:59
  23. The mistake in Trump’s tariff formula 29:37
  24. Is crime in London ‘through the roof’? 8:58
  25. How much luck do you need to win the World Cup? 8:59
  26. Does playing tennis make you live 9.7 years longer? 8:58
  27. Does the average teacher really earn £54,000? 28:28
  28. Does a full moon make crime rates go up? 8:58
  29. Examining the numbers behind Andy Burnham’s ‘Manchester Miracle’ 28:29
  30. Benefits v minimum wage: Which pays more? 28:29
  31. Is the US worse than North Korea for malnutrition deaths? 8:57
  32. Does Europe suffer more heat deaths than the US? 28:38
  33. Andrew Ross Sorkin: What can the Great Crash of 1929 tell us about today? 8:58
  34. Education, Education, Education (and Immigration) 28:37
  35. Factchecking claims that 400 churches were burned to the ground in France 8:58
  36. Debunking the claim that migrants will get half of new homes 28:48
  37. The known unknowns of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 8:58
  38. Does a fall in the UK's healthy life expectancy mean what you think it means? 28:39
  39. Is the ‘loneliness epidemic’ real? 8:55
  40. Are refugees more likely to commit crime? 28:10
  41. Erdos Problem 1196: Can AI now solve maths that no human can? 8:58
  42. Why it’s wrong to say vaping is as bad for you as smoking 8:58
  43. Does it take 15,000 litres of water to produce a kilogram of beef? 9:03
  44. Have RFK and MAHA really changed American views on vaccines? 8:59
  45. Is Trump right that wind turbines are killing millions of birds? 9:05
  46. Dr Spock’s dangerous advice on baby sleep 8:58
  47. How likely is ‘likely’? 8:58
  48. How much water does AI consume? 8:59
  49. Paul Ehrlich: The man who bet England wouldn’t exist by the year 2000 8:58
  50. Transgender women in sport: Does ‘comparable’ mean ‘equal’? 8:57