How to see through misleading numbers and statistics
Instant Genius24 Helmi 2025

How to see through misleading numbers and statistics

Whether it’s from our friends, workmates or via various media platforms, both social and traditional, these days we’re all faced with a never-ending bombardment of information expressed through numbers, percentages and statistics. But how exactly should we go about interpreting them? In this episode we catch up with Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, a statistician and science communicator based at the University of Cambridge. He shares some simple advice to help us understand how the risks and benefits of various lifestyle factors such as exercise and diet are presented to us, explains how framing can be used to make any number look big or small, and tells us what everyone, including scientists, could be doing better when we speak about numbers. Watch the episode here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(685)

Why leaves are one of nature’s most versatile creations

Why leaves are one of nature’s most versatile creations

From the neatly curated English country garden to the wild jungles of the Amazon, the Earth is host to a staggeringly diverse range of plant life. One of the key reasons for the great evolutionary suc...

11 Loka 35min

How to make buildings without harming the Earth

How to make buildings without harming the Earth

Every built environment we spend our time in, our homes, offices, music venues or sports stadiums – is designed and constructed after hours of consideration about form and function. Oftentimes, less c...

8 Loka 32min

Why humans are wired to appreciate beauty

Why humans are wired to appreciate beauty

A late summer sunset, a peaceful, verdant forest, or a Shakespearean sonnet – these are all things that move us emotionally thanks to what we perceive as their beauty. But why is this so, why do envir...

4 Loka 38min

How safety engineers test everyday products to destruction

How safety engineers test everyday products to destruction

Whenever we buy a new product or use a service, we simply expect it to work as advertised, usually without giving much thought to how it came to being in the first place. However, behind the scenes, e...

1 Loka 40min

Why we need to be taking asthma more seriously

Why we need to be taking asthma more seriously

Currently, around one in ten of us are living with asthma. For many, the symptoms can be relatively mild, but for others, attacks can be severe, debilitating, and even life-threatening. For the most p...

27 Syys 25min

What our evolutionary history can teach us about eating well

What our evolutionary history can teach us about eating well

These days, supermarket shelves are filled with thousands of different products all vying for our attention; the options are almost endless. However, if we look back in time, we find that our early an...

24 Syys 34min

Why Smell is Our Most Overlooked Sense

Why Smell is Our Most Overlooked Sense

Though often thought of as the poor cousin to our other senses, our sense of smell has played a key role in human life since its very beginnings. It helps us to determine whether certain foods are saf...

20 Syys 26min

Are We Living in a Simulation? How to Tell If Reality Is Fake

Are We Living in a Simulation? How to Tell If Reality Is Fake

The possibility that we may be living in a simulation created by a more technologically advanced civilisation has occupied the minds of scientists, philosophers and fiction writers for decades. We may...

17 Syys 36min

Suosittua kategoriassa Tiede

tiedekulma-podcast
rss-mita-tulisi-tietaa
utelias-mieli
rss-duodecim-lehti
rss-hereilla
docemilia
rss-kasvikutsut
rss-radplus
rss-normaalivinouma
rss-vaasan-yliopiston-podcastit
rss-poliisin-mieli