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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics used in everyday life

Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life

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More or Less: Amazon fires, State pension, American burgers

Amazon fires, State pension, American burgers

BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, Amazon fires, State pension, American burgers

Are forest fires in Brazil the worst in recent times? What is the state pension worth?

Are forest fires in Brazil the worst in recent times? How much is the state pension worth? Plus, finding out if Americans eat more than two burgers a day.

Amazon forest fires

This year’s fires in Brazil have been the worst in 10 years, but are they really 85 percent worse than last year? Many media reports also mention that the Amazon is the lungs of the planet – producing 20 percent of the Earth’s oxygen. Tim Harford speaks to Daniel Nepstad, President of Earth Innovation Institute, to analyse what we know about the fires.

The state pension and pensioner poverty

Earlier this month The Guardian website ran an article that claimed that British basic pensions are 16% of average earnings. Our initial thoughts were that the number seemed low so we explored its origins and discovered that things weren’t quite as they seemed.

Are Americans really eating more than two burgers a day?

Listeners spotted a report that Americans are eating around 800 burgers a year. It seemed a fantastically high number – surely it couldn’t be true. We looked into it, and it isn’t. We work out what a better figure would be.

Prehistoric pets
The team fact checks Jurassic Park, a well-known film franchise to see whether we are close to having prehistoric animals among us. 

What data should the government collect?
Tim Harford talks to Anna Powell-Smith, a data scientist who keeps a blog of her efforts at scouring through government databases to see what the government does and doesn’t record and why that matters.

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