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The Plus advent calendar door #22: Sexual statistics

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Behind today's door you'll find one of our favourite statisticians! If you've ever been lucky enough to meet David Spiegelhalter, or hear him talk in person or on TV or radio, you'll know he tells a great story. And the stories he told in his 2015 book Sex by numbers were fascinating and highly entertaining, as well giving us the tools to critically assess the statistics we read every day in the news. And sex is back in the news as the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles that featured in his book is being conducted again this year. Who knows what stories will come out of the next survey?

We were very happy to start 2023 with catching up with David at the Communicating mathematics for the public event and end the year catching up with him again at the 10th birthday celebrations of the Newton Gateway to Mathematics in Cambridge. We hope you enjoy this interview with him from 2015, where he gives us some of his favourite snippets from the book, and some easy ways you can think more critically about statistics. (You can also watch our interview as a video or read the associated article.)

You can listen to the podcast using the player above, and you can subscribe to our podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify and through most other podcast providers via podbean.

Return to the Plus advent calendar 2023.