How can we best communicate risk in our uncertain, post-truth world? With Sir David Spiegelhalter, Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of Cambridge

Data Malarkey - the podcast about using data smarter

In this episode of the Data Malarkey podcast, your host Sam Knowles is joined by one of the world’s finest data storytellers, David Spiegelhalter, the statistician and public communicator of his generation. Although he claims to have been retired for five years, the Emeritus Professor of Statistics from Cambridge University is working harder than ever.

Our conversation was recorded remotely, via the medium of Riverside.fm, on 6 March 2024.

Thanks to Joe Hickey for production support.

Podcast artwork by Shatter Media.

Voice over by Samantha Boffin.

If anyone can be said to have had “a good pandemic”, it was David. “At least I had something to do!” he quips, sharing how he quickly set up a studio at home and gave countless interviews about what the data meant and what we should do as a result.

While he believes that the Chief Scientific and Medical Officers of the U.K. National Health Service usually presented complex information simply and straightforwardly to a willing and receptive public – hungry for evidence of what they might choose to do and why – Government ministers (to the very top) and their Special Advisors (SPADs) had little clue.

Nothing gets David more irritated than wilful misuse of data, and several times during our lively discussion he vents considerable fury at peddlers of misinformation, under COVID and otherwise. We talk a lot about communicating risk (relative and absolute), particularly under uncertainty, with uncertainty the theme of David’s imminent new book, The Art of Uncertainty (to be published by Penguin in September 2024).

Away from the stats lab, we learn how David applied his data-driven smarts to winning the inaugural (and to-date only) Loop World Championship; Loop is pool played on an elliptical table with only one pocket at one of the foci of the ellipse. He also took an evidence-based approach to qualifying for the second round of Winter Wipeout, recorded a dozen years and more ago in Argentina, where David adopted the persona of Professor Risk.

In addition to uncertainty, we also focus on trustworthiness. For David, those using data and statistics to communicate need to earn and constantly re-earn a reputation for being trustworthy. And just as no-one laughs at a comedian who says “I’m funny” at the start of his set, no-one trusts a person using data to communicate complex topics who says “Just trust me!”. Being seen as trustworthy is a consequence of being honest, competent, and reliable.

David introduces Sam and the audience to the skill of “pre-bunking”, and several times warns against building data-driven narratives that push emotional levers or buttons. Data storytellers should present the evidence simply and fairly and then allow the audience to draw their own conclusions. “Treat them as if they’re intelligent, but also as if they don’t know anything.”

EXTERNAL LINKS

Cambridge University personal profile page https://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~david/

David on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Spiegelhalter

To find out what kind of data storyteller you are, complete our data storytelling scorecard at https://data-storytelling.scoreapp.com. It takes just two minutes, and we’ll send you your own personalised scorecard which tells you what kind of data storyteller you are.