You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

Thank you for downloading the Life Scientific from BBC Radio 4.

What's the chance of me being killed if I go skydiving tomorrow?

How much would I extend my life by if I took up yoga every day?

These are just some of the sorts of questions that my

guest today the statistician David Spiegelhaltor has been raising and answering in

his role as the Winton professor of Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University.

As one of the world's leading statisticians he's regularly called upon to answer questions

in high-profile inquiries, like the one into the deaths caused by Harold

Chippman, or into infant heart surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary.

His research papers are some of the most cited in his field and have won him many accolades.

David Spiegelholter, welcome to the Life Scientific.

Hello.

David, I think it'll surprise many people that someone who's been a leading statistician for more than three decades can say

...