Most of us have been brought up in an educational system that pushes the belief that once you put a number on something we tend to think of it as objectively true. Yet, while numbers belong to the objective world of mathematics, numbers are still created, analyzed and interpreted by subjects. In this talk Røislien will show how some numbers are better than others. How having numbers is worthless unless you have the right numbers. And how cold, hard numerical facts evoke emotions from deep inside of us, as the presentation of numbers will determine how we perceive the facts they represent.
 

Speaker

Jo Røislien is a Norwegian mathematician, lecturer, writer, executive producer and TV presenter. He holds a doctorate in geostatistics, before switching to biostatistics. Røislien is currently Professor of Medical Statistics at the University of Stavanger, Norway, and Honorary Professor at the University of Aalborg, Denmark, where he primarily does research within the health sciences, having co-authored more than 100 research papers. The Norwegian Research Council have awarded funding to a large and ambitious project which will research the effect of communication during a pandemic, where Røislien is Project manager.

Røislien is an award-winning, high-profile, research and science communicator. In 2012, he was the first ever Norwegian presenter on the Discovery Channel, and he has over the last decade created and hosted science series for several large-scale TV broadcasters. He regularly contributes on radio, television and in newspapers, both nationally and internationally, and has given several hundred lectures on communication of complex topics, dissemination of knowledge, and his own research.