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Reason, numbers and Mr Spock
What role do numbers play in helping us think more rationally?
The bill for Afghanistan
Did the war in Afghanistan cost the US $2 trillion?
Is immunity from vaccines waning?
How worried should we be about declining antibodies? Plus life-threatening hotdogs.
How many holes are there in a drinking straw?
Tim Harford talks to Jordan Ellenberg about the pandemic, geometry and drinking straws
Has the number of periods a woman has in her lifetime quadrupled?
A claim about how many periods a woman has and a suspicious stat on single-use face masks
The Gender Pay Gap
Can Machiavelli help women get a better deal in the workplace?
Vaccinating the world
How countries’ vaccination rates measure up – and the trickiness of comparing them.
The prize-winning economics of migration and the minimum wage
A look at the work of this year’s winners of the most prestigious prize in economics.
The numbers behind Squid Game
Could you survive a round in Squid Game, and how many have watched it?
The art of counting
Tim Harford talks to author Deborah Stone about her book which explores counting
Same data, opposite results. Can we trust research?
Why the same data can produce different conclusions.
The carbon cost of breakfast at COP26
Can a vegan croissant really be worse for the environment than a bacon roll?
A TikTok tale
How a well-meaning TikTok disrupted 4,600 studies.
Simpson’s Paradox: How to make vaccinated death figures misleading
A tricky statistical phenomenon at play.
Does wearing a mask halve your chances of getting Covid-19?
Is it true wearing a mask reduces Covid-19 incidence by 53%?
Does catching Covid give you more immunity than being vaccinated?
Infection vs injection: Could Covid infection provide 27 times more protection?
The psychological economics of gift giving
How to buy gifts people actually want.
Numbers of 2021
The most significant numbers of the year
Will the population of Nigeria be larger than Europe’s?
Will Nigeria’s population really reach 600million?
How much plastic is in the ocean and can Mr Beast make a difference?
Can two social media stars remove $30million worth of plastic from the ocean?
QAnon: Did 365,348 children go missing in the US in 2020?
Fact checking a QAnon claim.
Are female patients more likely to die if the surgeon is male?
Should women be worried about having a male surgeon?
Fertility rates: Baby boom or bust?
Fertility rates around the world
Placebo: Can you fool your brain?
Looking at the power of expectations
Testosterone and sport
Trans women’s participation in elite sport
Hospitalisation rates for children with Covid
What does the data tell us?
Did lockdowns save any lives?
Did lockdowns actually save any lives?
Numbers in Ukraine and low seas in Chagos
Troop and casualty numbers in Ukraine
Does the UK take in more refugees than other European countries?
Fact checking Boris Johnson’s claim
Pizza and nuclear war
How good negotiation can help us split pizzas fairly and also avoid nuclear war.
Why has Hong Kong’s Covid wave been so bad?
What’s behind one of the worst Covid death rates ever?
