Ideally we want to base our beliefs, decisions and actions on evidence. But statistical evidence can be full of nuance and therefore hard to steer by. Questions of percentage, preponderance, significance, standard deviations, orders of magnitude are only a few of the complications we may need to account for in our reckoning. And as this BBC report spells out — “clever people get stupider when they let their opinions get in the way” — the opinions we hold dear can tip us towards denial and blindness.

URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moreorless

Program Name: WS MoreOrLess Does politics make us get our sums wrong?

BBC World Service — Outlook, October 22, 2013, Lucy Ash talks with Felix Dennis.

Entrepreneur, publisher, poet, hedonist with multiple addictions, cancer survivor and now reforester, Dennis says “I have a very low boredom threshold.” He’s an unlikely candidate for sainthood, but when it comes to working through experience and arriving at wisdom he stands out. Listen to him.