Intelligence Squared How to Make the World Add Up, with Tim Harford
Jan 5, 2021
Tim Harford, a Senior economist for the Financial Times, and David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor at Cambridge, dive into the world of statistics and its real-life implications. They explore how emotional reactions can distort data interpretation, critique the credibility of popular psychology studies, and share cautionary tales about miscommunicating risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. They also discuss strategies to counter misinformation and the importance of diverse news consumption, all while emphasizing the power of numbers in understanding our world.
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1% Misrepresentation
- Tim Harford recounts a newspaper graphic that misrepresented the wealth of the 1%.
- It incorrectly stated 85 billionaires, not 70 million people, comprised this group.
Art Forgery
- Tim Harford discusses how the world's leading expert on Dutch art was fooled by a forgery.
- The expert's desire for the painting to be real overrode his technical expertise.
Misleading Graph
- Tim Harford shares a personal anecdote of retweeting a misleading graph about gay marriage support.
- He was enthusiastic about the data but hadn't checked the distorted axes.
