Should the government target persnuffle?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 October 2024
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Are childhood obesity rates going down? Do 35 million birds die every year in the UK after hitting windows? How much money could the Chancellor find by changing the debt rule? And Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter contemplates the probability of his own conception.
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news, and in life.
Presenter: Tim Harford Reporter: Charlotte MacDonald Producers: Bethan Ashmead Latham, Natasha Fernandes and Nathan Gower Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to tell you why I love |
| 0:03.7 | podcasting. I'm Natasha Aronson I'm an assistant commissioner for the BBC and I work on |
| 0:09.4 | making podcasts my real passion is discovering unbelievable unheard stories and working with the biggest |
| 0:16.9 | stars who can really bring those stories to life. |
| 0:20.1 | I love the whole process of making podcasts from the spark of an idea to hearing the final edit. |
| 0:26.4 | There's nothing like it. What makes BBC Podcast special is that we're working for you. |
| 0:31.0 | So whatever we commission has to reflect the things that you care about and love wherever you are in the |
| 0:36.0 | UK. So if you like this BBC podcast, there's so much more to discover. Have a listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:44.0 | BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds. B. C Sounds, Music Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:47.0 | Hello and welcome to more or less, the program that frolics with pumpkin spice latteudges through innumerable piles of statistics as though they were |
| 0:56.9 | freshly fallen leaves. |
| 0:59.3 | Either that or trudges through the muddy puddles of disinformation in a quest for truth? |
| 1:04.5 | In any case, I'm Tim Harford. |
| 1:07.4 | This week, Halloween has come early in the form of a shambling horde of zombie statistics. |
| 1:13.0 | Whether we're talking about childhood obesity, birds hitting windows, |
| 1:17.0 | fiscal rules, or the conception of David Spiegelholter, |
| 1:21.0 | you'll have the uncanny sense that you've heard us discuss this stuff before. |
| 1:25.2 | Except the conception of David Spiegelhalter, we've never discussed that before, but I assure you that the echoes of that conversation |
| 1:32.4 | will not be quick to fade. |
| 1:35.0 | All that lies ahead, but let's start with obesity. |
| 1:38.7 | A recent story in the Times made happy reading if you were under the impression that we were in the midst of a childhood obesity crisis. |
| 1:46.6 | Apparently the crisis is over. |
... |
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