More or Less

Understanding India through Data

23 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How do you go about understanding a country with a population as diverse as it is vast?Data journalist Rukmini S is the author of Whole Numbers and Ha...

Subitising and simplifying: how to better explain numbers

15 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever looked at a numerical claim and thought ‘what on earth does that mean?’ Complex numbers are often badly communicated, making it diff...

Did tea-drinking cut deaths in the Industrial Revolution?

09 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Could an explosion in tea-drinking explain a decline in deaths in England during the industrial revolution? Professor Francisca Antman, an economist a...

Will the war in Ukraine cause a global wheat shortage?

02 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the Russian Invasion of Ukraine continues, the effects ripple around the rest of the world. One concern involves the wheat harvest. There have been...

Pizza and Nuclear War

20 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The War in Ukraine has reminded the world how easily conflict might escalate into a Nuclear War. But according to Professor Barry Nalebuff of Yale Uni...

Does the UK take in more refugees than other European countries?

13 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the war in Ukraine continues, Reuters has reported that some 2.3 million people have been displaced. So far many of those have sought refuge in ne...

Numbers in Ukraine and low seas in Chagos

06 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we take a look at some of the numbers coming out of the conflict and ask how to know which information you c...

Troop and Casualty Numbers in Ukraine

02 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How reliable are the figures coming out of the conflict in Ukraine?Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we consider claims about the numbers of t...

Did lockdowns save any lives?

27 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lockdown. A word we’ve all become overly familiar with over the past two years. Lockdowns were intended to protect people, especially societies most...

Vaccinating children, lockdowns, and ebikes

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Jabs for five to 11-year-olds, lockdown effectiveness, and being green on two wheels.Governments across the UK have decided to offer Covid vaccination...

Hospitalisation rates for children with Covid

20 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Covid vaccines will be offered to all children across the UK between the ages of 5 and 12 - some months after the same decision in countries such as I...

Questioning claims about Covid and children

16 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How likely are children to end up in hospital because of Covid? And how many have died?We scrutinise some scary stats that have been circulating on so...

Testosterone and sport

13 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In early December 2021 a member of Penn University Women’s Swim Team caused a stir. Lia Thomas not only won three events but she had the fastest tim...

The prime minister in statistical bother

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Boris Johnson has been ticked off for misleading Parliament on jobs and on crime. He claimed that the number of people in employment has been rising -...

Can you fool your brain?

06 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Have you given up on your New Year’s resolution yet? Every year many of us make the promise to become better, shinier, more accomplished versions of...

Does the UK have the fastest growing economy in the G7?

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Conservative politicians have taken to the airwaves to tell us to forget the parties, and just look at the economic growth - but is the UK really grow...

Fertility rates: baby boom or bust?

30 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Under lockdown, couples were destined to find themselves closer than ever before, but despite what you’d think – this didn’t result in a higher ...

Should you follow the 5 second rule? And does inflation hit the poorest harder?

26 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Food writer Jack Monroe sparked national debate this week when she tweeted about food price hikes on the cheapest goods in supermarkets - but does inf...

Are female patients more likely to die if the surgeon is male?

23 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In early January several newspapers ran article claiming that ‘women are 32% more likely to die after operation by male surgeon. If true, this is a ...

Are women 32% more likely to die after operation by a male surgeon?

19 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Are women 32% more likely to die after operation by a male surgeon? Headlines asserting this were shared across social media recently - but the truth ...

QAnon: Did 365,348 children go missing in the US in 2020?

16 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In December, Republican politician Lauren Boebert tweeted the claim that ‘365,348 children went missing in 2020’. This is a shocking statistic but...

Omicron, pandemic birth rates and boosters

12 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The pandemic seems to be entering a new phase as Omicron has taken hold. Is it milder? And how might we make decisions based on the latest data?Predic...

How much plastic is in the Ocean and can Mr Beast make a difference?

09 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In October of last year popular Youtubers Mark Rober and the enigmatically named Mr Beast pledged to remove 30 million pounds of plastic from the Ocea...

Will the population of Nigeria be larger than Europe’s?

02 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In recent years population growth has slowed rapidly. Experts believe that the global population will stabilise somewhere around 11 billion people. Bu...

Numbers of 2021

26 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A guide to the most concerning, striking and downright extraordinary numbers of 2021. Tim Harford asks three More or Less interviewees about their mos...

The psychological economics of gift giving

19 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year – if you have something to sell that is. Every year we waste hundreds of dollars on gifts that aren’...

Does catching covid give you more immunity than being vaccinated?

12 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Immunity to Covid-19. We've all been hoping to develop it ever since the virus emerged two years ago. Since then, a race to vaccinate the world has be...

Does wearing a mask halve your chances of getting Covid-19?

05 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Masks, you may not have worn them before 2020 but now we’re all at it. With the rise of the Omicron variant countries have scrambled to reintroduce ...

Simpson’s Paradox: How to make vaccinated death figures misleading

28 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Vaccines are the best way to stop deaths and serious cases related to covid19, this is an irrefutable fact. However, recent ONS data seems to show tha...

A TikTok tale

21 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Nowadays if you are an academic and who needs some participants for a study you go online, but over the summer academic studies were inundated with pa...

The carbon cost of breakfast at COP26

14 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A French minister told people to eat fewer croissants at this year’s COP26 summit, after the menu said the carbon cost of the pastry was higher than...

Same data, opposite results. Can we trust research?

07 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Professor Martin Schweinsberg found that he was consistently reaching different conclusions to his peers, even with the same data, he wondered if...

The art of counting

31 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Who is counting, why are they counting, and what are they are counting? These three questions are important to ask when trying to understand numbers,...

The numbers behind Squid Game

24 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Netflix has announced that South Korean survival drama Squid Game is its most popular series ever. We scrutinise the statistics behind the claim, and...

The prize-winning economics of migration and the minimum wage

17 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Do immigrants drive down wages, do minimum wage increases reduce job opportunities, and do people who did well in school earn more money? These are qu...

Bonus episode: the first ever More or Less

07 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A chat with More or Less's founding producer and presenter plus the first episode in full. Tim talks to Michael Blastland and Sir Andrew Dilnot abou...

Twenty years of More or Less

06 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A look back at our origins, plus the usual mix of numerical nous and statistical savvy.It’s two decades since More or Less first beamed arithmetic i...

The Gender Pay Gap

03 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford talks to Planet Money’s Stacey Vanek Smith about the gender pay gap in the US and the UK – and how Renaissance writer, Machiavelli mig...

Is it easy being green?

29 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Is our electricity extra expensive and our insulation inadequate? And a tale of tumbling trees.Internet infographics suggest we’re paying way more f...

Covid trends, face mask use, and the universal credit cut

22 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A coronavirus check-in, our daily mask use measured, and a minister's claim on the universal credit cut questioned.There was a time when the latest Co...

How many holes are there in a drinking straw?

19 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford talks to Jordan Ellenberg, professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, about the pandemic, geometry and drinking s...

Death, Tax and Dishwashers

15 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

New data appears to show that double vaxxed people between 40 and 79 are getting Covid at higher rates than people who are unvaccinated, but that's no...

Vaccine waning, hot dogs and Afghanistan

08 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Should we be worried that the protection against Covid-19 provided by the vaccines is going down? Could it really be the case that eating a hot dog ta...

The Bill for Afghanistan

04 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

American President Joe Biden has said the war in Afghanistan cost more than $2 trillion. Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic In...

Covid, HGV driver shortages and protest costs

01 Sep 2021

Contributed by Lukas

English Covid restrictions were lifted in July. Back then, some predicted that there could be as many as 6,000 hospital admissions a day by the follow...

Reason, numbers and Mr Spock

28 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Writer Julia Galef talks to Tim Harford about the role of numbers in helping us think more rationally, and what Star Trek’s Mr Spock can teach us ab...

The extraordinary life of Robert Moses

21 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Robert Moses, a pioneer in African-American civil rights and mathematics education has died at the age of 86. Charmaine Cozier looks at an extraord...

How good were the performances at the Tokyo Olympics?

16 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A year later than planned, The Tokyo Olympics, have now finished. Thousands of athletes have competed in events that few thought might go ahead and th...

Jab fears explained: a base rate fallacy

07 Aug 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As some countries rapidly roll out vaccination programmes, there have been concerns that increases in infection rates amongst vaccinated groups mean v...

Breaking Climate Records

31 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

June saw a brutal heatwave shatter a number of all-time temperature records in Canada and the Northwest of the USA. But when can we attribute new reco...

The Rise of Delta

24 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Delta Variant was first identified in India, fuelling a huge wave of cases and deaths. It is now spreading around the world, becoming the most dom...

The Freedom Day Gamble

19 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On the day the Government plans to drop the remaining Covid restirictions, Tim Harford and the More or Less team try to work out how long cases will c...

Are there 40 million Nigerians on Twitter?

10 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In recent months, Twitter has rarely been out of the headlines in Nigeria. After it deleted a tweet by the country’s president, the Nigerian governm...

Is Ivermectin a Covid ‘wonder drug’?

03 Jul 2021

Contributed by Lukas

To some on the internet, the cheap anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin is a potential wonder drug that could dramatically change the global fight against C...

Scotland cases, flood risk and taxing the poor

30 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The UK’s Covid cases are still rising and Scotland is being hit particularly hard - so are we speeding up our vaccination programme in response?Will...

Maths and the Mayflower

26 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

This year sees the delayed 400th anniversary celebrations of the Mayflower voyage, an event seen as a crucial moment in the history of the United Stat...

Delta cases, blue tits and that one-in-two cancer claim

23 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Delta variant is behind the big increase in the number of new Covid 19 cases in the UK since April. We take a look at what impact vaccines have ha...

The origins of Covid

19 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

To find out where a virus comes from, researchers compare it to other viruses to try to trace its origin. This leads to claims like SARS-CoV-2 is 91 o...

Covid deaths, outdoor swimming and care homes

16 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The official number of deaths attributed to Covid 19 around the world in the whole of 2020 is 1.88 million. The global toll this year surpassed this f...

The doubling of life-expectancy

12 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Steven Johnson, author of Extra Life, tells the fascinating history of life expectancy, and the extraordinary achievements of the last century, in whi...

Third wave fears, smart motorways and bra sizes

09 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Covid cases are rising again in the UK – should we be worried about a third wave? Tim Harford speaks to David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of Ris...

Bolton vaccines, Yorkshire versus Scotland and the average gamer

02 Jun 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Health Minister Matt Hancock recently told the House of Commons that: “The number of vaccinations happening in Bolton right now is phenomenal - tens...

The Seaspiracy “virtually empty ocean” claim

29 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Popular Netflix documentary Seaspiracy has sparked a lot of debate recently, including some controversy over some of the claims the documentary makes ...

Wales jab success, Eurovision and living with your parents

26 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Wales has given one vaccination dose against Covid 19 to a larger proportion of their population than any other country except a couple of super tiny ...

The medical trial that proved Trump wrong

22 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Recovery Trial, a nation-wide clinical study in the UK, helped identify treatments for Covid 19 in the early months of the pandemic. Tim Harford ...

Explaining maths without Numbers

15 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford interviews Milo Beckman - a young mathematician, still in his twenties, who has written a book called ‘Math without Numbers’. Milo exp...

Finding Mexico City’s real death toll

08 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mexico City’s official Covid 19 death toll did not seem to reflect the full extent of the crisis that hit the country in the spring of 2020 - this i...

Bayes: the clergyman whose maths changed the world

02 May 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bayes’ Rule has been used in AI, genetic studies, translating foreign languages and even cracking the Enigma Code in the Second World War. We find o...

Will 2021 have more Covid deaths than 2020?

24 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2020 there were 1.8 million reported Covid deaths. So far this year, we’ve had 1.2 million. We’re currently seeing around 12,000 deaths a day a...

How many swimming pools full of vaccine do we need?

17 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If we brought together all the Covid 19 vaccine needed for the whole world, how much space would it fill up? An Olympic size swimming pool? We do some...

Clot risks: The Pill versus the vaccine

10 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Astra Zeneca Covid 19 jab remains in the headlines because some regulators have concluded that it may raise the risk of a very rare type of blood ...

Too fast for Minecraft?

04 Apr 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The impressive speed records of a well-known gamer called Dream for the video game Minecraft have come under scrutiny. Many say that Dream has complet...

In praise of Covid Data

27 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On this week’s programme we talk to Clare Griffiths from the UK’s coronavirus dashboard and Alexis Madrigal from the Atlantic Magazine’s Covid T...

Deciding when to suspend a vaccine

20 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Many countries recently decided to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine over fears it was increasing the risk of blood clots. The Eu...

The truth about obesity and Covid 19

13 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A widely reported study claims that 90% of Covid 19 deaths across the world happened in countries with high obesity rates. While an individual’s ris...

Sainthood and Cup draws

06 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford explores the chances of becoming a saint, inspired by a throw away comment by the detective on the TV drama ‘Death in Paradise.’ Plus,...

Why are US Covid cases falling?

27 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Cases of Covid 19 began to soar in the US in the autumn. By early January there were around 300,000 new cases a day. But since then the numbers have f...

Covid 19 death count: which countries are faring worst?

20 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Are different countries counting deaths from Covid 19 in the same way? Tim Harford finds out if we can trust international comparisons with the data a...

Comparing death counts, Lock Down drinking and Long Covid

17 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The UK was the first European country to surpass 100,000 deaths from Covid 19. The UK has one of the worst death rates. But can we trust the numbers? ...

How much Covid in the World?

13 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

If we brought all the virus particles of the Sars-CoV-2 virus from every human currently infected, how much would there be? This was a question posed ...

Brexit exports, cladding and are 1 in 5 disabled?

10 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Are exports to the EU from the UK down 68% since Brexit? This apocalyptic statistic is being widely reported, but does it really tell us what’s happ...

Glasgow vs Rwanda

06 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim explores a shocking claim that life expectancy in some parts of Glasgow is less than it is in Rwanda. But is that fair on Glasgow and for that mat...

Teachers, Test & Trace and Butterflies

03 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Prominent Labour politicians have claimed teachers are more likely to catch Covid-19, is that true?England’s Test and Trace programme has been widel...

The Rapid Test Row

30 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A ferocious row has broken out among scientists about new coronavirus tests. Lateral flow tests provide results within minutes and some scientists bel...

Deaths at Home, Supermarket Infections and the Cobra Effect

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Since the start of the pandemic there have been many warnings that people might die not just from the coronavirus itself, but also if they didn’t se...

Deaths at home, supermarket infections and the Cobra effect

27 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Since the start of the pandemic there have been many warnings that people might die not just from the coronavirus itself, but also if they didn’t se...

Counting Covid’s impact on GDP

23 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

GDP figures for the period covering lockdown appear to show that the UK suffered a catastrophic decline, worse than almost any other country. But as T...

Will the vaccine bring back normal life? GDP and Fishing

20 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The vaccine rollout continues: how long will it take before we see the benefits, and what benefits will we see? Figures suggest the UK’s economy per...

How effective is one dose of the vaccine?

14 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A lot has changed since More or Less was last on air. We give you a statistical picture of the second wave: how bad is it, and is there hope? The new ...

Ants and Algorithms

09 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What can ants tells us about whether something deserves to be popular? This is a question tackled in David Sumpter’s book – ‘The Ten Equations t...

Numbers of the year: Part two

08 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

From the economic impact of Covid 19 to the number of people who have access to soap and water, we showcase figures that tell us something about 2020....

Numbers of the year: Part one

08 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford asks a group of numbers-minded people to take a look back on the year and think of one statistic that really stands out for them. From the...

The economics of a Covid Christmas

19 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford asks economist Joel Waldfogel how Covid 19 could affect spending at Christmas this year. They discuss the usual bump in sales and gift giv...

QAnon: Child runaways and trafficking numbers debunked

12 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford looks at false statistical claims online about missing and trafficked children in the US. These numbers have resurfaced online in part due...

Vaccines: how safe and who gets it?

05 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The UK has become the first country in the world to approve the use of a vaccine for Covid 19. But some people are worried that the decision was taken...

Tracking Covid 19

28 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This year has shown us the importance of good robust data - as Covid-19 spread around the world it was vital to track where it was, how many people it...

Inviting Covid for Dinner

21 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you go to a gathering of 25 or more people, what are the chances one of you has coronavirus?Imagine that you’re planning to hold some sort of gat...

Vaccine numbers

14 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A vaccine which has shown in a clinical trial to be 90% effective against Covid 19 has been widely welcomed. But what does it mean and how was it work...

How deadly is Covid 19?

07 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Tim Harford explores what we know about mortality rates in the current pandemic. We discuss the differences between the risks to different age groups,...

Asymptomatic Covid19 Cases

31 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

A headline in a British tabloid newspaper claimed that ‘Staggering 86% who tested Covid positive in lockdown had NONE of the official symptoms’ bu...