In the new episode of Streuspanne, we look at Benford's Law. This mathematical principle mysteriously reveals fraud in statistics. Our Streuspanne team investigates whether it puts financial investigators out of work and whether the law can disprove Bielefeld.
Never trust a statistic that you haven't falsified yourself. Actually, we always cringe inwardly when someone throws this quote around.
Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact that statistics are occasionally faked. It would be great if statistics were able to detect fraud in statistics. The snake that can bite its own tail here is called Benford's law.
It regulates the probabilities of occurrence of the first digit of numbers in a data set in a seemingly mystical way. This is not only intended to uncover economic fraud and election manipulation, it is even supposed to fuel the Bielefeld conspiracy.
Our Streuspanne team Sascha Feth, Jochen Fiedler and Esther Packullat investigate this ominous law and clarify whether financial investigators will now be out of work, whether we are talking about a toothless tiger after all. If it bites itself in the tail, at least it won't hurt.
Sounds exciting? It's definitely worth a listen!
Have you discovered a numerical phenomenon that you would like us to discuss or read a statistic in the media and would like us to make it a topic in the »Streuspanne«? Then get in touch with us.
The podcast is only available in German.
You can find the podcast on all major portals such as Spotify, Podcasters, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Deezer, Google, RadioPublic, Pocket Casts or directly here on our website.
Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM