More or Less

Are the shocking statistics true? and how do you count people who don't wish to be found?

Dissecting the government’s hospitals announcement and President Trump’s Ukraine claims.

Were a third of those that fought for Britain in WW1 black or Asian?

During Question Time on the 19th journalist Ash Sarkar claimed that 120,000 people have been killed by austerity measures, but is this true? We speak to Mike Murphy, professor of demography at the London School of Economics to find out more.

Loyal listener Viv emailed us after hearing a surprising statistic: ‘producing a leg of lamb releases the same amount of Co2 as a transatlantic flight’ – does this spell the end of the Easter Sunday roast or are the figures a bit woolly?

Yet more loyal listeners Charles and Lucy emailed us wondering if we could look into how many women in China give birth in hospitals, and whether it was true that 50% of births there are delivered by caesarean section. Oh, and we also mention guts and bacteria…

Does God hate men? Seems quite a controversial statement but when the statistics show that men are four times more likely to be struck by lightning than women you can’t help but wonder… Tim talks to Timandra Harkness to find out more.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Using statistics to compare world records in athletics and swimming.

‘Candidates who want to raise concerns about Biden's (or Sanders's) age should... actually talk about their age, and not try to bring it up coyly though euphemism or inference’ wrote Nate Silver, the king of American stats, last week. So we are actually going to talk about the age of some of the frontrunners in the Democrat nomination race, Donald Trump himself and the health risks they face.

Sharks kill 12 humans a year but humans kill 11,417 sharks an hour. That’s the statistic used in a Facebook meme that’s doing the rounds. Is it true? Boris Worm, Professor of Marine Conservation and Biology at Dalhousie University reveals all.

Loyal listener Del emailed us to say that he’d read a blog published by Tradesman Saver that claimed that ‘New research reveals tradesmen earn thousands more than university graduates’. An interesting claim. Things aren’t quite as simple as they seem though….

The sale of computer games has become an increasingly important part of the UK’s economy – to such an extent that they were cited as a reason the CPI inflation rate fell in August. But as we discover, their sales are quite tricky to measure. We speak to Anna Isaacs of the Wall Street Journal.

Presenter: Tim Harford

Are eight people a day murdered in Cape Town and is that number unusually high?

Are black women five times more likely to die in childbirth?

Statistics published earlier this year led to headlines claiming that black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth than white women. But we find out that a lot of context has been lost in that statement. We look at the number of women who die, the reasons, and also discover that these death figures relate to a period spanning through pregnancy and the weeks afterwards – not just while women are in labour.

Are Taxi driver’s salaries faring well?

Price comparison website Compare the Market recently published a ranking of which professions have seen the largest salary increase since 2008. Our listeners were surprised to see that taxi drivers topped that list with an increase of 72% in ten years. The More or Less team never tire of fact checking so we’ve looked into the data to see whether this claim is wheely accurate.

Where are our boys? The Polish village that’s gone a decade without.

A one-road village in south west Poland made headlines across the world after they sent an all-female team of junior firefighters to a regional contest. The girls responded to questions by explaining that their village ‘has no boys’. Whilst not strictly true, they haven’t had a boy born in the village for a decade. The village is now on its twelfth girl in a row, but is it really that rare or significant?

A statistically good pop song

Kyle D Evans has taken a look at the 100 most popular recent pop songs in the UK to work out statistically the best ingredients to make his own. He looks at the most popular key and words used to pen and perform his own song.

Has it increased significantly since President Bolsonaro took office in January?

Challenging the idea of six billion deaths due to climate change; plus what pets eat.