Bad numbers in the news: how to spot them, and how to stop them

This was the subject of David's talk on June 13th at the University of Singapore.

Some say we live in a post-truth society abounding in fake news and alternative facts, with a declining trust in ‘experts’. Certainly the media are full of political and scientific claims about risks, supposedly based on science or statistics, but that may be exaggerated or even simply untrue. I will look at the ‘pipelines’ through which scientific evidence is propagated through the media to the public, and suggest ways of improving both the trustworthiness of the evidence being communicated, and the ability of audiences to assess the quality and reliability of what they are being told.