BONUS: Storks, Smoking and the Power of Doubt
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2020
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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 even death. We should guard against it.
Tim Harford looks at how the seeds of doubt are planted in this mini-episode of Cautionary Tales to celebrate the release of his latest book.
“How To Make The World Add Up” is out now in much of the world, while listeners in US/Canada can pre-order it under the title "The Data Detective" - ahead of its release in early 2021.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:11.6 | Hi, Tim Halfert here with two pieces of news and a brand new mini-corsionary tale for you. |
| 0:19.3 | News headline number one, we're back in the studio recording a new monster season of 14 episodes |
| 0:27.0 | of Corsionary Tales. There will be wonderful actors, hilarious calamities and tragic catastrophes. |
| 0:34.2 | Corsionary Tales Season 2, stay tuned. |
| 0:39.2 | News headline number two, I have a brand new book coming. If you're listening in the US |
| 0:44.5 | or Canada, it's out early next year and it's called The Data Detective. It's never too |
| 0:50.6 | early to pre-order so please consider doing that. But if you're listening anywhere else |
| 0:55.7 | in the world, the book is out right now and it's called How to Make the World Add Up. |
| 1:02.7 | On the surface it's a book about statistics but really it's a book about how to think |
| 1:07.6 | clearly about the world and if you want to know what the book is really about, gather |
| 1:12.9 | close. I'm Tim Halfert and this is a special mini-episode of Corsionary Tales. |
| 1:26.0 | You can make an estimate of how many children have been born into a Dutch or Danish family |
| 1:33.5 | by counting the stalks' nests on the roof of their house. In statistical terminology |
| 1:38.6 | it would be said that a positive correlation has been found to exist between these two |
| 1:43.0 | things. These are the words of Darryl Huff, the author of the most popular book about statistics |
| 1:53.0 | ever written, How to Lie with Statistics. But of course, stalks do not actually deliver |
| 1:59.6 | babies no matter how strong the correlation may be. Huff explains, Big Houses attract big |
| 2:06.4 | and potentially big families and Big Houses have more chimney pots on which stalks may |
| 2:11.7 | nest. Of course, sometimes it seems you can prove anything with statistics, especially |
| 2:19.8 | things that aren't true. Darryl Huff's little book is a masterclass in skepticism. |
| 2:25.6 | He exposes mistakes, half-truths and outright lies. Why, he explains. The crooks already |
... |
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