Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Episodes
Bonus: Why We Believe What Isn't True (with Axios Today)
12 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're no stranger to stories about misinformation or deliberate disinformation. We live in a world where now more than ever, you have to be skeptical....
The Data Detective
02 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Cautionary Tales' host Tim Harford has a new book - The Data Detective - setting out ten commandments for understanding the numbers, charts, graphs an...
BONUS: Storks, Smoking and the Power of Doubt
16 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's easy to mock statistics or cast doubt on them... but we do so at our peril. Undermining our trust in facts and figures can cause great harm, and ...
How To End A Pandemic
17 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The eradication of smallpox is one of humanity's great achievements - but the battle against the virus was fought by the most unlikely of alliances. H...
That Turn To Pascagoula
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For years, people had warned that New Orleans was vulnerable - but when a hurricane came close to destroying the city, the reaction was muted. Some pe...
The Village of Heroes
03 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It looked like any ordinary roll of cloth, but it brought the dreaded plague to the village of Eyam. First it killed the tailor, then resident after r...
The Spreadsheet of Life and Death
26 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Clive had a deadly form of cancer, but fortunately there was a new drug to treat it. Imagine his anger when he was told the treatment was too expensiv...
A Tsunami of Misery
19 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A monstrous wave and then a nuclear disaster forced Mikio and Hamako Watanabe from their home. But being saved from the potential dangers of a radiati...
Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club
12 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Flames are spreading through a Cincinnati hotel. The staff know it, the fire department is coming, and the people in the packed cabaret bar have been ...
Cautionary Tales Presents: TED Talk Daily
31 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode of Cautionary Tales, we feature Cautionary Tales host Tim Harford's TED Talk Daily from 2018. What can we learn from the world...
You Have Reached Your Destination
27 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We may mock our ancestors for seeking the advice of oracles, soothsayers and psychics, but today we rely heavily on computer programs and math formula...
Bowie, Jazz and the Unplayable Piano
20 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
It was the biggest concert of Keith Jarrett's career - but the pianist was in for a shock when he entered Koln's opera house. The only piano at the ve...
How Britain Invented, Then Ignored, Blitzkrieg
13 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1917, a brilliant British officer developed a way to use an emerging military technology: the tank. The British army promptly squandered the idea –...
Buried by the Wall Street Crash
06 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Both of the world’s greatest economists, Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes, thought they could see into the future and make a killing on the sto...
The Deadly Airship Race
29 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A British Lord wanted to build the best airship in the world - and so he had two rival design teams battle it out to win the juicy government contract...
La La Land: Galileo's Warning
22 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the more likely to happe...
The Rogue Dressed as a Captain
15 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One crisp morning in Berlin, in 1906, a small group of soldiers were led on an extraordinary heist by a man they believed to be a Captain. So how did ...
DANGER: Rocks Ahead!
15 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Torrey Canyon was one of the biggest and best ships in the world - but its captain and crew still needlessly steered it towards a deadly reef known as...
Introducing: Cautionary Tales
22 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Coming November 15 from Tim Harford and Pushkin Industries, Cautionary Tales relates a true story of a time when something did not go according to pla...