More or Less: Behind the Stats

BBC

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MATHEMATICS
UPDATED WEEKLY

Tim Harford and the More or Less team try to make sense of the statistics which surround us. From BBC Radio 4

1 DAY AGO

Do 11,000 sharks die every hour?

Hollywood has given sharks a terrible reputation. But in reality, the finned fish should be far more scared of us, than we of them. Millions of sharks are killed in fishing nets and lines every year. One statistical claim seems to sum up the scale of this slaughter – that 100 million sharks are killed every year, or roughly 11,000 per day. But how was this figure calculated, and what exactly does it mean? We go straight to the source and speak to the researcher who worked it out, Dr Boris Worm, a professor in marine conservation at Dalhousie University in Canada. Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Annie Gardiner Editor: Richard Vadon

9 min
30 AUG

Are self-driving cars safer than cars with drivers?

Fully autonomous cars are here. In a handful of cities across the US and China, robotaxis are transporting human passengers around town, but with no human behind the wheel. Loyal Listener Amberish wrote in to More or Less to ask about a couple of safety statistics he’d seen regarding these self-driving cars on social media. These claimed that Waymo self-driving taxis were five times safer than human drivers in the US, and that Tesla’s self-driving cars are 10 times safer. But, are these claims true? We speak to Mark MacCarthy, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation, to find out. If you’ve seen some numbers you think we should look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

9 min
23 AUG

Do women feel the cold more than men?

Are office temperatures set too low in the summer for women to be comfortable? This idea has featured in news headlines and comedy videos which describe the summer as a “women’s winter”. But is there evidence behind the claims of a gender bias in air conditioning? To find out, we speak to Gail Brager, Director of the Center for Environmental Design Research at UC Berkeley, and Boris Kingma, a senior researcher at TNO, the Netherlands Applied Research Institute. Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon

9 min
16 AUG

How weird was the Med Sea heatwave?

In early July, the Mediterranean Sea experienced a marine heatwave. The surface of the water reached temperatures of 30 degrees in some places. A social media post at the time claimed that some of these sea temperatures were so different to the normal sea temperature at this time of year, that the sea was experiencing a “1-in-216,000,000,000-year sea temperature anomaly”. This would suggest that the likelihood of the event was on a timescale far longer than the amount of time the entire universe has existed. Is the claim true? Dr Jules Kajtar, a physical oceanographer from the National Oceanography Centre, takes a look at the statistics. We heard about this story because a listener spotted it and emailed the team. Get in touch if you’ve seen a number you think we should look at. moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

9 min
9 AUG

Why it matters that Trump fired data chief

On Friday 1st August the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put out their job report data for August. It included revisions to their estimates for the jobs created in May and June which stated there were 258,000 fewer jobs than they had previously estimated. This news was not received well by the White House. President Trump fired the head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, calling the numbers ‘phony, rigged, a scam’ and spreading conspiracy theories that McEntarfer had fudged the data. We speak to economist Michael Strain from the American Enterprise Institute, to understand why the revisions happened and the potential consequences of throwing doubt on one of the US’s most important statistical agencies. If you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Sam Bonham

9 min
6 AUG

Are abortion numbers rising in the US?

In June 2022 the United States Supreme Court passed what became known as ‘the Dobbs decision’. In doing so they overturned the long standing constitutional right for women to access abortion in the US. Since then a number of states have banned abortion completely with many others having highly prohibitive rules. You’d expect the numbers of abortions to go down. They haven’t. How is it possible that more people are accessing abortions in a post Dobbs society and why is it not true that states which have total bans have zero abortions per year? Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Studio Manager: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon, Bridget Harney.

9 min
6 AUG

Does a single AI query use a bottle of water?

We’re living through boom-times for Artificial Intelligence, with more and more of us using AI assistants like ChatGPT, DeepSeek, Grok and Copilot to do basic research and writing tasks. But what is the environmental impact of these technologies? Many listeners have got in touch with More or Less to ask us to investigate various claims about the energy and water use of AI. One claim in particular has caught your attention - the idea that the equivalent of a small bottle of drinking water is consumed by computer processors every time you ask an AI a question, or get it to write a simple email. So, where does that claim come from, and is it true? Reporter: Paul Connolly Producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Donald McDonald Editor: Richard Vadon

9 min
19 JUL

Are one in six children living through war?

In the midst of the television coverage of Soccer Aid, a celebrity soccer match organised by Unicef, the audience was told that “one in six children around the world are currently living through war”. Listener Isla got in touch with More or Less to ask whether the claim was correct, so we tracked down the source to an organisation called the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Research director Siri Aas Rustad tells us how they worked out a figure for the number of children living near to a “conflict” and the big differences between that and something most people would think of as “war”. If you’ve seen a number you think we should look at, email the team on moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Giles Aspen Editor: Richard Vadon

9 min

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