Sir David Spiegelhalter is one of the world’s leading statisticians, Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication at Cambridge University and author of The Art of Uncertainty. Having served on public inquiries into mass murder (Harold Shipman) and systemic healthcare failures, he has spent decades analysing how data is used - and misused - in society.
In this episode, Sir David breaks down the mechanics of numerical manipulation in media, why "objective truth" is a flawed concept and how we can protect ourselves from confirmation bias.
We discuss:
• Why you should immediately distrust any statistic you hear in the news.
• How mathematical algorithms helped catch Britain’s most prolific serial killer.
• How simple linguistic tricks make identical statistics sound terrifying or reassuring.
• The breakdown of public trust during COVID-19 and the error of simplistic messaging.
• "Hedgehogs vs. Foxes": The mental framework that separates terrible forecasters from super-forecasters.
• The rise of AI "black boxes" in healthcare, weather, and business forecasting.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 - I Can Make Any Number Look Frightening
00:03:08 - The System That Could Have Caught Shipman
00:06:45 - Can You Mislead People With The Truth?
00:09:54 - Your Own Bias Does The Work
00:15:33 - Sitting In The Middle Of The COVID Argument
00:17:52 - What The Public Got Wrong About Vaccines
00:19:37 - Safe And Effective Was The Wrong Message
00:20:56 - The Experiment On A Thousand People
00:25:00 - What The Data Says About Lockdowns
00:30:25 - The Government Threw Its Weight Around
00:31:02 - I Cannot Forgive The Fear Mongering
00:34:08 - Children Have Never Been Safer
00:36:28 - Trustworthy, Not Trusted
00:37:34 - How The Productivity Figures Went Wrong
00:41:28 - Predicting The Crowd At Real Bedford
00:48:20 - Will AI Replace Statisticians?
00:50:03 - Musk's 20% Chance
01:01:39 - The Model That Predicts When You Die
01:05:05 - What AI Did To Mathematicians
01:15:00 - Hedgehogs And Foxes
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CONTACT PETE
› Website – http://petermccormack.com
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CONNECT WITH DAVID SPIEGELHALTER
› Website – https://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~david/
› The Art of Uncertainty – https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447230/the-art-of-uncertainty-by-spiegelhalter-david/9780241658628
› X/Twitter – https://x.com/d_spiegel
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FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
› https://www.curttaylor.co.uk/
EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
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