It’s nice when someone who understands medical journals and statistics has the same reaction you do to the ridiculous Lancet story that claimed 655,000 Iraqi war-related deaths in a mere two years. Medipundit puts it all in perspective:
The researchers spent two months canvassing households in various regions of Iraq asking about deaths in the family. Sometimes they were able to confirm the reports with death certificates, sometimes they weren’t. They didn’t ask if the dead were combatants or non-combatants. They were afraid to ask that question. Afraid for themselves and for those they were asking. They interviewed 40 households in each of their selected regions, then extrapolated the 600,000 figure from the number of deaths they had recorded in their interviews. The margin of error of +/-200,000 speaks for itself. It’s not reliable.
I especially like that little margin of error problem. Whoever the heck came up with the phrase that there are “lies, damn lies and statistics,” would be in convulsions of laughter if he or she could read this.
Medipundit has a lot more to say on the subject, and you can read it all here.
By the way, while people who actually think about things, and who apply logic to the world around them, may be more than a little dubious about The Lancet‘s latest venture in meddling with American elections, it’s good to know that our credulous American news agencies (which is the kindest thing I can think to say about them), are peddling this story as the God’s honest truth.
Hat tip: Independent Women’s Forum
UPDATE: Because a good cartoon is worth at least several hundred words:
Filed under: Anti-war, Media matters |
Bookworm Room (ARCHIVES) 
I want to spare you the trouble, Mrs. Bookworm, of having to parrot one of the other authoritarian “debunkings” of the Lancet study, once the error of interpretation in your currently favored attack on the study is revealed to you. At the far side of this hyperlink, you’ll find all seven of the reichwing’s reflexive denials of the Lancet study’s merit. All seven. The errors of each are persuasively summarized — Which, in of itself, illustrates how peer-reviewed science withstands multiple assaults and comes out unscathed, one can say more persuasive and authoritative as a result of proving its mettle.
The Iraq war has caused 655,000 Iraqi deaths.
[…] [Read more and discuss…] […]
Not so fast, there, Greg: Lancet has long been known in the health sciences community as a source of anecdotal papers that can’t withstand peer review. The number cited of 655,000 Iraqi deaths is nonesense on its face, in large part because you can’t hide that number of deaths in a country that faces so much international scrutiny on a daily basis. The study was based on 500-or-so interviews, based on verbal responses rather than documentation, in non-representative areas and extrapolated to the entire country at large- this is junk science at its worst. To suggest that Iraq has suffered more dead than the combined American deaths of the Pacific and European theaters of WWII and that it has somehow been a kept great secret until just this moment is ludicrous and indicative of how far removed from reality the Left is mired.
Please, Danny, your “critique” of the study’s methods and findings is nicely rebutted at the article I’ve hyperlinked above. Do go to the trouble of reading it before flinging your reichwing, all-purpose dismissal of science at variance with your authoritarian preference, i.e. “junk science.” That you should fear “junk thinking” more.
thanks greg. i was about to waste bandwidth addressing the exact same points and you saved me the trouble and some of the inevitable frustration.
just another example of what you get when you deal with ‘faith-based’ intelligence.
peace
The Acknowledgments section in the Lancet article states, “We express our deepest admiration for the dedicated Iraqi data collectors who have asked not to be identified.” Since the researchers just crunched numbers generated by unknown data collectors, their results could quite easily be the result of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out.) So researchers aside, how do we know that the collectors didn’t harbor personal motives or predilections? How do we know that they actually performed the interviews?
Greg-
An accepted law of scientific research is that it has to be reproducible so could you please direct me to another study that reports the same findings? Because, for instance, the Iraq Body Count Database http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/ sets the figure at between 43,850 and 48,693 utilizing a different methodology (but they at least list their sources—albeit suspect as well.)
I notice that the hyperlink does not address my concern.
Also, I would have to agree with Danny in that since the article does not have a submission date and an acceptance date, it was not peer reviewed.
Kevin, wipe the frothing spittle from your chin, and re-read the acknowledgement: “We express our deepest admiration for the dedicated Iraqi data collectors who have asked not to be identified.” The data collectors remain anonymous in print but were known to the researchers.
Another study that “reports the same findings”? Well, Kevin, new data draw attention to themselves because they supply the needed information to fill in the gaps in our understanding of a phenomenon. With regards to the Lancet study and the hyperlinked rebuttal of your own and others’ reichwing “junk thinking”, perhaps you noticed this comment: “Thus, the data presented here validates our 2004 study, which conservatively estimated an excess mortality of nearly 100 000 as of September, 2004.”
The Lancet data stand as the best estimate we currently have.
Another thing scientists do is called a first-order approximation (a.k.a. a reality check) so let’s do one, shall we?
It’s been approximately 3.5 years since the invasion of Iraq or about 1278 days. Now the report claims 655,000 deaths so that works out to about 512 deaths per day, every day, since the invasion. I just have a really hard time believing that there are NO news agencies that have reported this in a 3.5 year span.
Now, let’s just say for argument’s sake, that half of the reporters in Iraq are liberal in their political views. Who would have suspected that they are ALL (that’s 100% folks) so inept that they were unable to uncover and report on all these deaths when they are actually on the ground in Iraq? It took researchers not in Iraq to uncover the truth utilizing data from unnamed census takers! I mean, whoda thunk?
It reminds me of the inflated (and since debunked) claims of 10,000 women dying of back-alley abortions that was used to gin up support for Roe v. Wade but hey, that’s just me.
“The data collectors remain anonymous in print but were known to the researchers.”
That means nothing–if they don’t identify the inspectors, their impartiality cannot be evaluated.
Also your stating “The Lancet data stand as the best estimate we currently have” doesn’t make it so, no matter how many times you repeat it but feel free to keep trying.
“new data draw attention to themselves because they supply the needed information to fill in the gaps in our understanding of a phenomenon”
…and it remains suspect until it can be independently reproduced. I don’t see where anyone has verified their 2004 report and I would have thought that those numbers would have been provocative enough to entice some other researchers somewhere to try to verify them.
A researcher at UC Berkley tried to fill in the gaps in our understanding of a phenomenon in the periodic table a couple of years back and it turns out he made up the data–so much for elements 116 and 118.
Greg, if we are all “reichwingers” and/or gullible idiots, why do you bother posting here? We’re all incorrigible, aren’t we? I can’t see you are actually trying to convince anyone, because your tone is so arrogant.
you’ll find all seven of the reichwing’s reflexive denials of the Lancet study’s merit.
See what happens when I leave for a day or two?
Do go to the trouble of reading it before flinging your reichwing, all-purpose dismissal of science at variance with your authoritarian preference, i.e.
Religious right=anti-science dontcha know. It don’t matter whtat Danny says, the truth is the truth, dontcha know.
Let’s go back to the beginning of the century and change the future, why don’t we. So that the reichwing will never occur.
just another example of what you get when you deal with ‘faith-based’ intelligence.
Didn’t even need to read this to maky my above correlation.
Greg, if we are all “reichwingers” and/or gullible idiots, why do you bother posting here?
Zhombre,
Because nobody else will air his grievances and expound his points, so he feels the need to speak Truth to Power?
because your tone is so arrogant.
I think the Left skipped a couple of social etiquette and dignity lessons.
Let’s go back to the beginning of the century and change the future, why don’t we. So that the reichwing will never occur.
Hold up a second, my bad. This is the 21st century, not the 20th century.
I’m sure the Left has no interests in going back to 2000 and settling old scores and planting bombs in the Twin Towers in order to repeat history or shall we say “fullfill a self-fullfilling prophecy”.
Shorter Greg: This study is incontrovertible and you babbling reichwing idiots should be consigned to reeducation camps.
You don’t think they want to disarm the population, because they see that as a necessary requirement for putting people involuntarily into those said camps, would you?
Greg-
I’ll admit that I was rather complacent about this particular news story and I’d like to thank you for forcing me to consider it more closely.
After a bit more contemplation I began to wonder if Iraq was possibly so big that 512 deaths per day could be spread out over so much area that they wouldn’t show up as statistically significant in any particular area (i.e. it would be impossible to notice the number of deaths utilizing empirical evidence.)
It turns out that the land area of Iraq is somewhere around 169,000 square miles depending on the source you consult (I used Wikipedia.) The closest state we have to this size is California with almost 164,000 square miles. Also, looking at a map of Iraq, the amount of inhabited land appears to be significantly less but for the sake of argument, let’s go with all 169,000 square miles.
Now, revisiting the previous calculation that 655,000 deaths in 3.5 years works out to 512 deaths per day, every day, we can now expand the analysis and say that this is occurring in an area the size of California.
Finally, the total number of daily deaths would also have to be spread out fairly evenly from day-to-day. Otherwise, you’d have situations where one day there would be 2,000 deaths and the next 3 might have none. Does it seem reasonable that 2,000 people in an area the size of California can be killed in a single day and not have it show up on the news? I’m sure that even you can see that this doesn’t seem very plausible so now we’re back to 512 deaths per day, every day. I just don’t see this as being easily overlooked for 3.5 years—-especially with so many reporters onsite.
I personally think the Iraq Body Count Database of between 43,000 and 48,000 deaths sounds like a more realistic number (since it’s based on news reports that were derived empirically.)
In the end, you can choose to believe what you wish but if you still cling to the 655,000 deaths, I think you’d be prudent to watch who you’re calling gullible.
Yep, Greg, you and dagon were caught (redhanded) ‘body-bagging,’ –weren’t you?
x body bags = BAD war.
You never learn, Greg. DIDN’T the history lessons from the Johnson/Nixon era teach you anything? The Pentagon is smarter than you.
Bodybagging is for stupid people.
This analysis and commentary on Pajamas Media does as good a job as any for illustrating the complete fatuousness of Greg, Dagon and their fellow travelers: http://politicscentral.com/2006/10/11/jaccuse_iraq_the_model_respond.php#c019256
Danny, thanks for the link. Certainly Iraq-the-model is justified in his outrage–not over the crazed Lancet fabrication: but about the villains’ politics.
I am always amazed at the extent of the inhumanity of the MSM, and its Leftist masters.
Your welcome, JG. I never forgave them for the 3.5-million Indochinese dead that resulted when “they” voted to cut-off funding to the Cambodian and S. Vietnamese armies, betraying our agreements and promises to them. I was a Democrat, then. I want to just puke when the Left speaks of “human rights”. I am sure that a similar fate awaits the Afghanis and Iraquis, should the Democrat/Left and its MSM fellow-travelers regain power in the U.S.
I want to just puke when the Left speaks of “human rights”.
People get away with, with what they can get away with, I guess. Why does treason never prosper? For treason to prosper, none dare call it treason. The Democrats and their Vietnam “victory” solutions prospered, greatly. None dare call it treason.
The Democrats had to be crushed by Grant’s federal troops after the Civil War, because the Democrats were lynching and intimidating too many blacks, therefore by the next election you would have had the same people in power that was in power BEFORE the civil war ever occured. The names change, but the faces stay the same.
The Democrats are quite ruthless, Danny. Not a lot of people on the Right seem to understand this. Or if they do understand this, they seem to believe that the Democrats are “rational” in their goals and priorities. But really, when you have a Democrat dropping two nuclear bombs on two cities populated with human beings, that is definitely the definition of “ruthless”. Democrats do what they believe is right, bar nothing. Now if the Democrat is a good person like Truman, then everything is okay. But if they aren’t.. if they are a Edward Kennedy or a Kerry… well, let us just say, that you better hope you are never under their protection.
Since the Democrats believe in populism now and what is right is what keeps Democrats in power, then logically annihilating the Islamic Jihad and every country in the Arabic world, starts to sound better and better to the Democrats. As they linked Nazis to the Republicans, they will then link Islamic Jihad with the Republicans. Rosie already doing it. So next, they gonna be talking about how they need to get gun registrations, in order to keep track on “terrorists” and that anyone who disagrees is an ally of the jihadists.
Then whenever any corruption starts up, they just drop a nuke on an Islamic country and start up an air war, and talk about how the Republicans are obstructing America’s path to victory against jihadists again.
If your goal is power, and if you will do anything and sacrifice anyone to stay in power, what’s a few million deaths an ocean away, to you? Nothing, it is nothing. That is how the Democrats think, and it is in their best interests, as they have defined it. They will sacrifice as many people as it takes, as many civil rights and civil liberties as it takes, in order to stay in power by riding the “World War”.
People do know that FDR had like 4 terms, right? Democrats have been paying attention, you know.
A higher power disposed of FDR before he could do anymore harm. Would that it could have happened ten years earlier and saved the world from the horrors of the pre-WW2 era, the actual war years and the post-war era when Frankie gave Uncle Joe all of eastern Europe.
Lucky for western Europe, Truman wasn’t quite as enamored with the “Noble Experiment” as his predecessor was, although he did precious little to cleanse the stygian stables of commies working diligently in the highest places of our government to destroy our country from within.