Sinopsis
Tim Harford and the More or Less team try to make sense of the statistics which surround us. From BBC Radio 4
Episodios
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WS More or Less: An urban maze
08/05/2017 Duración: 09minWhy some parts of town are hard to navigate.
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Is Crime Rising?
05/05/2017 Duración: 24minIt looks like homicides are on the rise - but better check the footnotes
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WS More or Less: The Maths of Dating
01/05/2017 Duración: 09minHow to use mathematics to find your partner. And, how reliable are pregnancy due dates?
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Fact-checking Boris Johnson
28/04/2017 Duración: 28minGiant bombs, a war hero and the foreign secretary's stats.
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WS More or Less: The death rate of white Americans – What’s going on?
21/04/2017 Duración: 09minAre middle-aged white Americans dying younger than other groups?
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Living standards and Kate Bush maths
21/04/2017 Duración: 23minAre people's incomes falling? Plus singing Pi like Kate Bush
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WS More or Less: The Ignorance Test
14/04/2017 Duración: 09minHow much do you know about the world?
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Economics of Overbooking
14/04/2017 Duración: 24minWhy airlines bet that not everybody will turn up for a flight.
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WS More or Less: Could North Korea Wipe out 90% of Americans?
10/04/2017 Duración: 09minA single nuclear weapon could destroy America’s entire electrical grid, claims a former head of the CIA. The explosion would send out an electromagnetic pulse – resulting in famine, societal collapse and what one newspaper has called a “Dark Apocalypse”.But are hungry squirrels a greater threat to the electrical grid than North Korean weapons? We speak to senior security adviser Sharon Burke and Yoni Applebaum from The Atlantic.Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Producer: Hannah Sander
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WS More or Less: Will one in four people develop a mental health problem?
31/03/2017 Duración: 09minThe claim that “one in four” of us will suffer from a mental health problem is popular amongst campaigners, politicians and the media. But this leads you to a simple question – where is this figure from and what’s the evidence? This was exactly what neuroscientist Jamie Horder asked, and far from being simple, it led him on quite a journey. So do we really know how many people are likely to develop mental health problems – Elizabeth Cassin and Charlotte McDonald find out.Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Producer: Elizabeth Cassin
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WS More Or Less: Baby Boxes – are they really saving infant’s lives?
24/03/2017 Duración: 09minEver since a BBC article highlighted the use of baby boxes in Finland they have become a bit of a phenomenon. They’re not new though Finland has been doing this for 75 years. The simple cardboard boxes are given to families for their new born babies to sleep in. Since their introduction cot death and has fallen and child health improved. Governments and individuals across the world have adopted them and companies have sprung up selling them. But think about for minute – can a cardboard box on its own really have such a huge effect – Elizabeth Cassin and Charlotte McDonald have been looking at the truth behind the story. Presenter: Charlotte McDonaldProducer: Elizabeth Cassin(Photo:One of Scotland's first baby boxes is seen at Clackmannanshire Community Health Centre. Credit: Getty Images)
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More or Less: The concrete facts about Trump’s wall and China
17/03/2017 Duración: 09minDid China use more concrete in three years than the US in the 20th Century?
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WS More or Less: The Attention Span of a Goldfish
10/03/2017 Duración: 08minAre our attention spans now shorter than a goldfish's?
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WS More or Less: Why are Hollywood actresses paid less than men?
03/03/2017 Duración: 08minTop Hollywood actresses have complained that they are paid less than their male co-stars
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WS More or Less: What happened last night in Sweden?
24/02/2017 Duración: 09minWhat happened last night in Sweden?
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Hidden Figures: The Real Story
17/02/2017 Duración: 09minHidden Figures, the film, has been nominated for three awards at the Oscars and has been a box office hit in the US. It tells the little-known story of a group of African American women and their contribution to the space race in the 50s and 60s. We explore the history of how these women were recruited by Nasa and put to work on complex mathematical tasks – at a time when African Americans and women were far less likely to be employed in such jobs. (Photo: Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson,in a scene from Hidden Figures. Credit: Hopper Stone/Twentieth Century Fox/AP)
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WS More or Less: Hans Rosling - the extraordinary life of a statistical guru
13/02/2017 Duración: 26minA huge hole was left in the world this week with the death of the Swedish statistician Han Rosling. He was a master communicator whose captivating presentations on global development were watched by millions. He had the ear of those with power and influence. His friend Bill Gates said Hans ‘brought data to life and helped the world see the human progress it often overlooked’. In a world that often looks at the bad news coming out of the developing world, Rosling was determined to spread the good news, extended life expectancy, falling rates of disease and infant mortality. He was fighting what he called the ‘post-fact era‘ of global health. He was passionate about global development and before he became famous he lived and worked in Mozambique, India and the Democratic Republic of Congo using data and his skills as a doctor to save lives. Despite ill health he also travelled to Liberia during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 to help gather and consolidate data to help fight the outbreak. On a personal level he was
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WS More or Less: Is democracy failing in America?
03/02/2017 Duración: 08minDoes North Carolina really rank alongside North Korea if you measure electoral integrity
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WS More or Less: Counting Crowds
27/01/2017 Duración: 08minHow many went to celebrate – and how many to protest – the Trump inauguration?
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WS More or Less: Why January makes us want to scream
20/01/2017 Duración: 09minBlue Monday and Oxfam’s comparison wealth of billionaires and the poor –the stories that come around every year.