More or Less: Behind the Stats

Hollywood has given sharks a terrible reputation. But in reality, the finned fish should be far more scared of us, than we of them. Millions of sharks are killed in fishing nets and lines every year. One statistical claim seems to sum up the scale of this slaughter – that 100 million sharks are killed every year, or roughly 11,000 per day. But how was this figure calculated, and what exactly does it mean? We go straight to the source and speak to the researcher who worked it out, Dr Boris Worm, a professor in marine conservation at Dalhousie University in Canada. Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Annie Gardiner Editor: Richard Vadon

Fully autonomous cars are here. In a handful of cities across the US and China, robotaxis are transporting human passengers around town, but with no human behind the wheel. Loyal Listener Amberish wrote in to More or Less to ask about a couple of safety statistics he’d seen regarding these self-driving cars on social media. These claimed that Waymo self-driving taxis were five times safer than human drivers in the US, and that Tesla’s self-driving cars are 10 times safer. But, are these claims true? We speak to Mark MacCarthy, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Center for Technology Innovation, to find out. If you’ve seen some numbers you think we should look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

Are office temperatures set too low in the summer for women to be comfortable? This idea has featured in news headlines and comedy videos which describe the summer as a “women’s winter”. But is there evidence behind the claims of a gender bias in air conditioning? To find out, we speak to Gail Brager, Director of the Center for Environmental Design Research at UC Berkeley, and Boris Kingma, a senior researcher at TNO, the Netherlands Applied Research Institute. Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Nicholas Barrett Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: James Beard Editor: Richard Vadon

In early July, the Mediterranean Sea experienced a marine heatwave. The surface of the water reached temperatures of 30 degrees in some places. A social media post at the time claimed that some of these sea temperatures were so different to the normal sea temperature at this time of year, that the sea was experiencing a “1-in-216,000,000,000-year sea temperature anomaly”. This would suggest that the likelihood of the event was on a timescale far longer than the amount of time the entire universe has existed. Is the claim true? Dr Jules Kajtar, a physical oceanographer from the National Oceanography Centre, takes a look at the statistics. We heard about this story because a listener spotted it and emailed the team. Get in touch if you’ve seen a number you think we should look at. moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Richard Vadon

On Friday 1st August the US Bureau of Labor Statistics put out their job report data for August. It included revisions to their estimates for the jobs created in May and June which stated there were 258,000 fewer jobs than they had previously estimated. This news was not received well by the White House. President Trump fired the head of the bureau, Erika McEntarfer, calling the numbers ‘phony, rigged, a scam’ and spreading conspiracy theories that McEntarfer had fudged the data. We speak to economist Michael Strain from the American Enterprise Institute, to understand why the revisions happened and the potential consequences of throwing doubt on one of the US’s most important statistical agencies. If you’ve seen a number in the news you think we should take a look at, email the team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Lizzy McNeill Producer: Lizzy McNeill Series Producer: Tom Colls Production Co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Sound mix: Neil Churchill Editor: Sam Bonham