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PODCAST

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

science mathematics

All Episodes

8:58

The Bill for Afghanistan

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2021/09/04

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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28:51

Covid, HGV driver shortages and protest costs

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2021/09/01

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 again – can it really be that costly?The economics correspondent at The Economist Duncan Weldon puts government borrowing during the pandemic into context and talk about his new book, 200 Years of Muddling

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8:58

Reason, numbers and Mr Spock

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2021/08/28

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 impulses, and the ways we can avoid these traps. Producer: Nathan Gower(Image: Leonard Nimoy as Mr Spock. Credit: Bettmann/Contributor via Getty Images)

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8:58

The extraordinary life of Robert Moses

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2021/08/21

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 their way through his life. Presenter: Charmaine Cozier Producer: Nathan GowerPortrait of American Civil Rights activist Robert Parris Moses, New York, 1964. (Photo by Robert Elfstrom/Villon Films/Gety

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8:57

How good were the performances at the Tokyo Olympics?

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2021/08/16

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 the races and what else can the data tell us?Tim Harford speaks to Dr Joel Mason, who runs the blog, Trackademic. Producer: Olivia Noon

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8:58

Jab fears explained: a base rate fallacy

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2021/08/07

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 of Texas Health Science Centre School of Public Health explains why this isn’t what the numbers show – rather than decreasing vaccine effectiveness, increasing rates can be explained by a statistical

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8:58

Breaking Climate Records

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2021/07/31

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 climate change has dramatically increased the probability of seeing such extremes.Presenter: Tim HarfordProducer: Nathan Gower

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8:58

The Rise of Delta

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2021/07/24

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 be done to stop it?Tim Harford speaks to Professor Azra Ghani, Chair in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College, London and John Burn-Murdoch, the chief data reporter at The Financial

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28:44

The Freedom Day Gamble

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2021/07/19

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 with people’s lives?

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8:58

Are there 40 million Nigerians on Twitter?

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2021/07/10

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 could this really be true? We spoke to Allwell Okpi of the fact-checking organisation AfricaCheck.Also, which places have the best full vaccination rates in the world? Turns out, its some of the smallest

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8:58

Is Ivermectin a Covid ‘wonder drug’?

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2021/07/03

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 varying quality, what - if anything - do we know for sure about Ivermectin? And is uncovering the truth a more complex process than some appreciate?With Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz from the University of

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28:42

Scotland cases, flood risk and taxing the poor

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2021/06/30

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 more than half their income in tax?What are the top five places with the best vaccination rates in the world? The answers may surprise you.We speak to Tom Chivers, a science journalist who has written a book

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8:58

Maths and the Mayflower

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2021/06/26

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 maths and the Mayflower.

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29:01

Delta cases, blue tits and that one-in-two cancer claim

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2021/06/23

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. We get him onto the programme to explain.How much does Type 2 diabetes cost the NHS a year? While exploring a dubious claim we find out why its hard to work that out.Is it true that on in two people will

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8:58

The origins of Covid

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2021/06/19

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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28:56

Covid deaths, outdoor swimming and care homes

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2021/06/16

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 Europe? That’s certainly a claim made by a number of newspapers. We show why this is not the case. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has been in the news again with comments regarding care homes during the pandemic

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8:58

The doubling of life-expectancy

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2021/06/12

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 London to the pioneering social health surveys of W.E.B. Du Bois in 1890s Philadelphia. Tim Harford spoke to Steven about the numbers beneath possibly the most important number of all.

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28:39

Third wave fears, smart motorways and bra sizes

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2021/06/09

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. We take a look at the numbers.What proportion of adults in England have been vaccinated? Listeners have spotted a potential discrepancy in the public data online.Are 80% of women wearing the wrong size

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28:58

Bolton vaccines, Yorkshire versus Scotland and the...

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2021/06/02

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 independence. We compare Scotland’s finances to the comparably sized Yorkshire and Humber region.How do you work out 28 + 47 in your head? We speak to mathematician Katie Steckles.A listener asked us to find out if

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8:58

The Seaspiracy “virtually empty ocean” claim

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2021/05/29

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.” Although overfishing is a global problem, we take a look and find that this scenario is unlikely.

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