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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

8:57

What is an IQ map and can we trust them?

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2025/03/15

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 developing countries, including many in Africa. Unsurprisingly the map is often used as a way to bolster arguments about racial or national superiority. However, when you look at the data behind the claims the whole thing falls apart. We dive into the methods behind the map and ask whether it’s even possible to

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28:37

DOGE, apples and irregular migrants

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2025/03/12

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 inefficiency. Listeners asked us to investigate the claim that 1 in 12 Londoners is an illegal immigrant. We look into the claim that imported New Zealand apples have a smaller carbon footprint than British grown apples. Plus - did VAT on private schools really boost the rate of inflation, or was that just a

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8:57

Is there really $500bn of Rare Earths in Ukraine?

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2025/03/08

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. But is there that amount of minerals in the ground?Presenter: Tim HarfordProducer and Editor: Richard Vadon Studio Manager: James Beard Production Co-ordinator: Brenda Brown

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28:30

Defence Spending, Rare Earths and Trunk Truths

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2025/03/05

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 spending to 3%? But most important of all - how many muscles are in an elephant’s trunk?Presenter: Tim HarfordSeries Producer: Charlotte McDonald Reporter: Lizzy McNeill Producers: Nathan Gower and Josh McMinn Editor: Richard Vadon Production Co-Ordinator: Brenda Brown

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8:56

Has the US really given Ukraine more aid than Europe?

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2025/03/01

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, and that Europe’s aid took the form of a loan that they’ll be getting back. Emmanuel Macron has publicly contradicted the US President - so who’s correct? Nathan Gower speaks to Taro Nishikawa, project lead at the Kiel Institute’s Ukraine Support Tracker to get the true picture. Presenter / Producer:

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8:58

Are 150 year olds getting social security payments?

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2025/02/22

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 and social security numbers remain live.Elon claimed that he had uncovered ‘the biggest fraud ever’ prompting some news outlets to speculate that billions of dollars might be being paid to these dead people every month. But is it true? We look at whether this is new information and what the data

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8:58

Has the US sent $50 million worth of condoms to Gaza?

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2025/02/15

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 International Development (aka USAID). President Trump later repeated this claim, adding on that Hamas were using said condoms to make bombs to fire at Israel. On the 7th of February the USAID website was taken down. We fact check this claim and find out how much of the US budget was spent on USAID

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8:58

Are black babies in the US really more likely to die...

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2025/02/08

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 study came out that claimed that black babies attended by white doctors after birth were twice as likely to die than white babies attended by white doctors. People jumped to the conclusion that the race of the doctor was leading to the different outcomes. But when you delve into the numbers, a very

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8:58

Are quantum computers already super-powerful?

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2025/02/01

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 the entire history of the known universe, that seems to suggest the chip is extremely powerful. But when you understand what’s going on, the claim doesn’t seem quite so impressive. Dr Peter Leek, a quantum computer scientist from Oxford University, explains the key context. Presenter: Charlotte

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8:57

Did Trump make billions with his meme-coin?

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2025/01/25

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 billion of them may eventually be created.Newspaper headlines claimed that the Trump meme-coin had made the president billions of dollars wealthier. But it is far from clear that this is the case. Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series producer: Tom Colls Production

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8:57

Can redheads handle 25% more pain than brunettes?

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2025/01/18

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 brunette peers. Pain expert Jeff Mogil explains how it all comes down to something called MC1R. Presenter: Charlotte McDonaldProducer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Editor: Richard Vadon Production Co-ordinator: Katie Morrison

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8:57

Do 79% of Swedish asylum seekers go on holiday to the...

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2025/01/11

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 the danger they face in the country they have fled from. But when you look at the survey the claim is based on, you see the stat in a very different way. We speak to Hjalmar Strid, who ran the survey for polling company Novus, and Tino Sanandaji from Bulletin, the online news site which published

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9:00

Numbers of the year part 2

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2025/01/04

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 in now and put them to our experts.Tune if you want to hear about rising global temperatures, what Taylor Swift has in common with 65 years olds and facts about fax (machines). Contributors: Amanda Maycock, University of Leeds Jennifer Dowd, University of OxfordPresenter: Charlotte McDonald Reporter:

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8:58

Numbers of the year 2024

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2024/12/28

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 children saved by vaccines. Contributors: RukminiS, Data for India Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, Cambridge University, Hannah Ritchie, Our World in Data. Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Producers: Lizzy McNeill and Vicky Baker Series Producer: Tom Colls Editor: Richard Vadon Sound Engineer: Donald

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8:58

Did Mussolini make the trains run on time?

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2024/12/21

“Say what you like about Mussolini but he did make the trains run on time.” This phrase is the political equivalent of “every cloud has a silver lining” – but does it have any factual basis? Mussolini’s dictatorship in Italy was full of atrocities, brutal suppression and propaganda. Did it also create a more efficient railway network? We speak to Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat about the truth of the claim and why the Mussolini regime wanted us to believe it. Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer:

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8:58

How many Americans live ‘paycheck to paycheck’?

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2024/12/14

Are most Americans barely holding their head above water when it comes to personal finances?That’s what various US politicians and news outlets keep suggesting. They can’t stop using a statistic about people living “paycheck to paycheck”. But what does this really mean? We go behind the headlines to unpick the numbers. Contributor: Ben Krauss, journalist Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Producer: Vicky Baker and Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Katie

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9:56

Did one in 10 Greeks die in World War Two?

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2024/12/07

When World War Two came to Greece, a period of terrible human suffering followed. There was a brutal battle with Italian and then Nazi forces, followed by an occupation in which thousands were executed and a terrible famine swept the nation. There’s an often repeated number that appears to capture the brutality of this time – that 10% of the Greek population died during the war. We investigate where this statistic comes from and whether it is true. Presenter: Charlotte McDonaldProducer: Tom

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8:59

Can Elon Musk save the US Government $2 trillion?

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2024/11/30

President Elect Donald Trump has created a new government advisory group – the Department of Government Efficiency or ‘DOGE’ - to help cut the US budget. The world richest man, Elon Musk, will co-head the department and has pledged to cut ‘at least $2 trillion’ to ‘balance the budget’. But is this possible? We talk to Professor Linda Bilmes about what DOGE could or couldn’t do and how she balanced the budget in the 1990’s. Presenter: Charlotte McDonaldProducer: Lizzy McNeill Series producer: Tom

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8:56

Do fossil fuels get $7 trillion in subsidies?

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2024/11/23

Governments around the world have promised to fight climate change. But are they also pumping an absolutely massive amount of money into subsidies for fossil fuels? In 2022, an IMF working paper estimated that global subsidies for fossil fuels totalled $7 trillion. But when you dig into that research, you find that this number might not mean what you think it does. We explain how they reached that conclusion, with the help of Angela Picciariello from the International Institute for Sustainable

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8:59

Did 20 million votes really go missing in the US...

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2024/11/16

Just hours after Donald Trump claimed victory in the US presidential election, rumours started swirling that something was afoot. A graph went viral on social media that appeared to show there were 20 million more votes cast in 2020 than in the 2024 election. Where had these supposedly “missing” votes gone? Conspiracy theorists on both sides of the political spectrum began shouting claims of fraud. The answer, it turns out, is rather more straightforward. Presenter: Charlotte

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1,059 results

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