More or Less

According to the head of the British military, the Russian government spends 40% of its budget on its war machine. But is it true?

Image: Russian Military Perform Victory Day Parade Night Rehearsal in Moscow Credit: (Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)

For over 50 years it’s been widely reported that speaking before a group is people’s number one fear. But is it really true? With the help of Dr Karen Kangas Dwyer, a former Professor in the School of Communication at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Dr Christopher Bader, Professor of Sociology at Chapman University, Tim Harford tracks the source of the claim back to the 1970’s and explores whether it was true then, and whether it’s true today.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Picture Credit: vchal via Getty

As running races get longer, the gap between male and female competitors seems to close. Tim Harford and Lucy Proctor investigate the claim that when the race is 195 miles long, women overtake men to become the fastest runners.

(Image:Male and female running together up a mountain trail. Credit: nattrass via Getty)

Is school funding at record levels as the education secretary claimed? Why did the ONS change how they measure excess deaths? Is there a shoplifting epidemic? Did 6.5bn creatures arrive in the UK by plane last year?

Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news.

Presenter: Tim Harford

In the NBA, the US professional basketball league, the average player is a shade over 6ft 6 inches tall. So just how much does being very tall increase a man’s chances of becoming a professional player?

Tim Harford talks to data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball’s Biggest Questions.

Presenter: Tim Harford

(Image: Charlotte Hornets v New York Knicks. Credit: Focus on Sport/Getty Images)

What does per capita GDP tell us about the UK economy? Did the government spend £94bn helping with rising energy prices? Was Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg right about the cost of the EU covid recovery scheme? How did Ben Goldacre persuade scientists to publish all their medical research?

Tim Harford investigates the numbers in the news.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Big medical datasets pose a serious problem. Thousands of patients’ health records are an enormous risk to personal privacy. But they also contain an enormous opportunity – they could show us how to provide better treatments or more effective health policies.

A system called OpenSAFELY has been designed to solve this problem, with the help of a computer code “robot”.

Professor Ben Goldacre, director of the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford, explains how it works.

What is the government’s fiscal rule on the national debt? Are international students stealing places from the UK’s young people? How much social housing is really being built? Do 90% of chip shops sell shark and chips?

Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news.

Presenter: Tim Harford

In a surprising new trend, young men and women around the world are dividing by gender on their politics and ideologies. Whilst young women are becoming more liberal, young men are becoming more conservative. Tim Harford speaks to John Burn-Murdoch, Columnist and Chief Data Reporter at the Financial Times, about why this global phenomena may be occurring and Dr Heejung Chung, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, explains why the ideological divisions between young men and women in South Korea are some of the most extreme.

Presenter: Tim Harford

(Picture: A couple with their back to each other busy with their mobile phones

Do you really pay more in council tax on a semi in Hartlepool than a mansion in Westminster? How do the Office for National Statistics work out how much the UK population is going to grow by? How much do junior doctor strikes cost? Is home-grown veg worse for climate change than veg grown on a farm?

Tim Harford investigates the numbers in the news.

Presenter: Tim Harford