About this episode
The episode explores how language conveys probabilities in news reporting and features a quiz designed by Adam Kucharski to assess understanding of these terms.
When you’re listening to the news, you will often hear words that are meant to communicate the probability of something happening. A terrorist attack is “a realistic possibility”, the spread of a certain strain of virus is “highly likely", the relegation of your favourite football team is “possible”. But when you hear these terms, do you really know what kind of probabilities they’re trying to convey? Do you know how likely “likely” is? Or what probability “probable” is meant to get across? In some cases, it seems you probably don't. Professor Adam Kucharski, author of Proof, the Uncertain Science of Certainty, designed a quiz to work out the actual probabilities of the language we use to convey risks. The data he got back shows how sometimes these words mean very different things to different people. If you want to try the quiz for yourself, head over to https://probability.kucharski.io/ Email the More or Less team: moreorless@bbc.co.uk CREDITS: Presenter: Charlotte McDonald Series producer: Tom Colls Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown Sound mix: Gareth Jones Editor: Richard Vadon
People in this episode
Host: Charlotte McDonald
Guest: Adam Kucharski
Topics covered
- probability
- language
- risk communication
- news analysis
- quiz
Keywords
- probability
- risk
- language
- news
- quiz
- Adam Kucharski
- BBC Radio 4
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: BBC Radio 4
Books & works: Proof, the Uncertain Science of Certainty
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