100,000 Iraqis dead? Probably not...

[bseitz]

Looks like that "study" has some serious problems.

http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.html

[crosscg]

Looks like that "study" has some serious problems.

http://www.chicagoboyz.net/archives/002543.html
Did you seriously just link a conservative blog. Thats pretty bad... although I agree this report is bogus, most of their reasoning is as bogus as the report.

[clemson357]

did this study really rely on "self-reporting"????????

in other words, they contacted people in a 3rd world country and said "how many people do you know that have died?"

[bseitz]

Did you seriously just link a conservative blog. Thats pretty bad... although I agree this report is bogus, most of their reasoning is as bogus as the report.
Examples?

[bseitz]

Did you seriously just link a conservative blog. Thats pretty bad... although I agree this report is bogus, most of their reasoning is as bogus as the report.
And since you agree that the report is bogus, in your expert opinion, what would you place the likely figure at? And of that number, what percentage needed killing?

[nonewdirections]

even if the number is inflated, get a real source. this has as much credibility to me as a post on this message board. in other words, it contains information that is possibly correct, but undocumented, unverified and could come from anywhere.

but about the main point, if it's 25,000 or 50,000 or 80,000, are we doing THAT much better? that's still a horrifying amount of people dead, don't you think? many of which we are responsible for.

[bseitz]

even if the number is inflated, get a real source. this has as much credibility to me as a post on this message board. in other words, it contains information that is possibly correct, but undocumented, unverified and could come from anywhere.

but about the main point, if it's 25,000 or 50,000 or 80,000, are we doing THAT much better? that's still a horrifying amount of people dead, don't you think? many of which we are responsible for.
A real source? Like CBS or the New York Times maybe? If you have a quarrel with their analysis, say so and back it up. Let's say the actual number is 25,000 and 90% had it coming (criminals, Saddam loyalists, terrorist, etc.). That would leave 2,500 civilians killed which is pretty damned low considering, most of which fall in the "Sunni Triangle" of Saddam supporters. If there were instances where hundreds were killed in one shot, you can GUARANTEE it would be all over the "mainstream" press, all of the time. The point is, the number of "innocent civilians" killed is a tiny fraction of the number being pushed by The Lancet. Let us know when you have some substantive criticism.

[nonewdirections]

A real source? Like CBS or the New York Times maybe? If you have a quarrel with their analysis, say so and back it up. Let's say the actual number is 25,000 and 90% had it coming (criminals, Saddam loyalists, terrorist, etc.). That would leave 2,500 civilians killed which is pretty damned low considering, most of which fall in the "Sunni Triangle" of Saddam supporters. If there were instances where hundreds were killed in one shot, you can GUARANTEE it would be all over the "mainstream" press, all of the time. The point is, the number of "innocent civilians" killed is a tiny fraction of the number being pushed by The Lancet. Let us know when you have some substantive criticism.
except that you came up with 90% off the top of your head. what if it's 50%? now that number is off the top of my head. it's irrelevant because neither of us know how many "innocent" and how many others were killed. we don't even know the causes of death that are being documented!

i wouldn't say i stand behind the report at all. i'm not going to bother defending it because i'd have to believe it in the first place. in fact, it probably is mistaken, but i'm not going to base that on a blog. i'm just saying to watch what you take as "credible" information.

[bseitz]

except that you came up with 90% off the top of your head. what if it's 50%? now that number is off the top of my head. it's irrelevant because neither of us know how many "innocent" and how many others were killed. we don't even know the causes of death that are being documented!
Given the fact that our precision guided munitions can hit specific target within several meters, I thing 90% is actually a little low. The fact is that most of the dying is being done in an area where there are very few "innocents" (except the children).


i wouldn't say i stand behind the report at all. i'm not going to bother defending it because i'd have to believe it in the first place. in fact, it probably is mistaken, but i'm not going to base that on a blog. i'm just saying to watch what you take as "credible" information.
Again, if you've got any "credible" information to dispute their analysis, let's have it. If it's mistaken, what number would you think is reasonable? Bloggers seem to have a better track record than the "mainstream" press because if they're wrong, they find out about it very quickly.

[bluegirl617]

Again, if you've got any "credible" information to dispute their analysis, let's have it. If it's mistaken, what number would you think is reasonable? Bloggers seem to have a better track record than the "mainstream" press because if they're wrong, they find out about it very quickly.

Wait a minute if THEY are making claims then THEY must support thier own analysis. You just don't assume they are right. How would any of us have information capable of coming up with a number. At least the lancet article was done with actual data. The fact that you are even asking is ridiculous. The Lancet is also a far more creditable source then a blog.

bluegirl617

[bseitz]

Wait a minute if THEY are making claims then THEY must support thier own analysis. You just don't assume they are right. How would any of us have information capable of coming up with a number. At least the lancet article was done with actual data. The fact that you are even asking is ridiculous. The Lancet is also a far more creditable source then a blog.

bluegirl617
Did you read the article? This blog, that you so casually dismiss, took apart both the data and the methodology used to arrive at their conclusion. As far as the Lancet's credibility, it's certainly taken a hit if this is an example of their work. Again, any substantive criticism of the analysis? Do you really believe the 100,000 number?

[bluegirl617]

Did you read the article? This blog, that you so casually dismiss, took apart both the data and the methodology used to arrive at their conclusion. As far as the Lancet's credibility, it's certainly taken a hit if this is an example of their work. Again, any substantive criticism of the analysis? Do you really believe the 100,000 number?
Are you reading what I wrote. You are asking people to defend not beliving a blog. They don't have to. They also don't have to come up with there own numbers. It's a blog. If you actually read the lancet article you will see that there is nothing sinister about it. It presents all the data and shows the faults of the methodology in the article itself. Just like every scientific paper should. If you read the article it is no better or no worse then any other survey type study. In fact their is probably no better way to find out the amount of deaths in this situation unless you get the government involved.
"This "peer reviewed study" is a piece of polemical garbage. Everybody is supposed to take away the bumper sticker summary, "Coalition kills 100,000 Iraqi civilians, half of them children," without reading the details. It tries to use crude epidemiological models like those used to study disease and applies them to the conscious infliction of violence by human beings. The result is statistical static."
The Lancet is a scientific peer reviewed paper for people who will read the details. The guy who wrote the blog is paranoid and apparently bitter. I think the numbers are definally not 100,000 but if you read the article you can come to that conclusion you don't need to read the blog. That is the conclusion I came to when I read the article the first time. But the numbers are problably high. Why? It's a war more people are going to die. It also does not matter if alot of people die in one spot or if it is spread out. A life is a life no matter where it is.

bluegirl617

[bseitz]

Are you reading what I wrote. You are asking people to defend not beliving a blog. They don't have to. They also don't have to come up with there own numbers. It's a blog. If you actually read the lancet article you will see that there is nothing sinister about it. It presents all the data and shows the faults of the methodology in the article itself. Just like every scientific paper should. If you read the article it is no better or no worse then any other survey type study. In fact their is probably no better way to find out the amount of deaths in this situation unless you get the government involved.

People are throwing around that 100,000 as if it's a fact, which of course it must be since it was arrived at by the esteemed Lancet, which is of course a peer reviewed journal. So they used a flawed methodology and suspect data to come up with a defendable conclusion? It's a bit misleading to put out a number and then say that it's probably way off in the footnotes, don't you think? I guess most people aren't as sophisticated as you are and didn't read the fine print.


The Lancet is a scientific peer reviewed paper for people who will read the details. The guy who wrote the blog is paranoid and apparently bitter. I think the numbers are definally not 100,000 but if you read the article you can come to that conclusion you don't need to read the blog. That is the conclusion I came to when I read the article the first time. But the numbers are problably high. Why? It's a war more people are going to die. It also does not matter if alot of people die in one spot or if it is spread out. A life is a life no matter where it is.
I'll ignore your unsupported attack on the author. So the number is high because more people die in a war? I thought the objective was to estimate the number of people who died as a result of the war. It also matters very much if people die in one spot or spread out if you're going to extrapolate that data to the entire population. A life is a life, and the mass graves show that many were lost during Saddam's reign of terror.

[bluegirl617]

People are throwing around that 100,000 as if it's a fact, which of course it must be since it was arrived at by the esteemed Lancet, which is of course a peer reviewed journal. So they used a flawed methodology and suspect data to come up with a defendable conclusion? It's a bit misleading to put out a number and then say that it's probably way off in the footnotes, don't you think? I guess most people aren't as sophisticated as you are and didn't read the fine print.
Well that is there fault for not reading the paper properly. The fact is we don't know and will never no. Even if you read the SFgate article you can see the flaws in the argument. People are obviously beliveing what they want. People for the war are going to say bullshit! That's not true. Some people are going to believe it and some people will read it a be logical about it.


I'll ignore your unsupported attack on the author. So the number is high because more people die in a war? I thought the objective was to estimate the number of people who died as a result of the war. It also matters very much if people die in one spot or spread out if you're going to extrapolate that data to the entire population. A life is a life, and the mass graves show that many were lost during Saddam's reign of terror.
I am saying that if the number of deaths were around 100,000 it would not matter if the violence was in specific places or everywhere. Obviously they assumed that there would be deaths everywhere. That is why I said that the number should be smaller. If that was not the case I would have no reason to doubt the number because that is the major problem with the paper. The paper did report that some cluster had no violent deaths, however, and that might have lead the researchers to the conclusion that if the clusters were distributed across Iraq then the ratio of clusters with no violent deaths vs those with violent deaths would be the same for the whole country allowing them to extrapolate their data like they did. This is most likly not true but it would make their numbers more accurate since they are taking in to account places with little to no violence.

bluegirl617

[WJM-WJM]

Did you seriously just link a conservative blog.

Yeah, there have not been any links to liberal websites or mass emails in this forum...
:rolleyes:

;)

[WJM-WJM]

The author of that article does appear to have some knowledge of statistical analysis too. It's not like the author just said the "numbers are wrong!!" and rambled on.

[bseitz]

Well that is there fault for not reading the paper properly. The fact is we don't know and will never no. Even if you read the SFgate article you can see the flaws in the argument. People are obviously beliveing what they want. People for the war are going to say bullshit! That's not true. Some people are going to believe it and some people will read it a be logical about it.


I am saying that if the number of deaths were around 100,000 it would not matter if the violence was in specific places or everywhere. Obviously they assumed that there would be deaths everywhere. That is why I said that the number should be smaller. If that was not the case I would have no reason to doubt the number because that is the major problem with the paper. The paper did report that some cluster had no violent deaths, however, and that might have lead the researchers to the conclusion that if the clusters were distributed across Iraq then the ratio of clusters with no violent deaths vs those with violent deaths would be the same for the whole country allowing them to extrapolate their data like they did. This is most likly not true but it would make their numbers more accurate since they are taking in to account places with little to no violence.

bluegirl617
So to make a long story short, they pulled a number out of their ass and made up "study" to justify it. Comes awfully close to the election don't you think? No political motives I'm sure.

[bseitz]

The author of that article does appear to have some knowledge of statistical analysis too. It's not like the author just said the "numbers are wrong!!" and rambled on.
As most responders have...

[bluegirl617]

So to make a long story short, they pulled a number out of their ass and made up "study" to justify it. Comes awfully close to the election don't you think? No political motives I'm sure.

I am convinced you did not read the actual paper. You would see that they do have reason for their data and their conclusion and if you read my post you could see they would have a reason to believe they could extrapolate their data the way they did. Their data, however, would be skewed. Also there really is no other methodology they could use under the circumstances. It is still violent and a third world country.

bluegirl617

The author also admited his bias against the war. That is way I am reading the paper and judging the data.

[bseitz]

I am convinced you did not read the actual paper. You would see that they do have reason for their data and their conclusion and if you read my post you could see they would have a reason to believe they could extrapolate their data the way they did. Their data, however, would be skewed. Also there really is no other methodology they could use under the circumstances. It is still violent and a third world country.

bluegirl617

The author also admited his bias against the war. That is way I am reading the paper and judging the data.
So given those realities, what factor would you apply to the conclusion? 70%? 50%, 30%?

[bluegirl617]

So given those realities, what factor would you apply to the conclusion? 70%? 50%, 30%?

I don't know the distribution of violence in Iraq. So I couldn't tell you how far off they are. Less then 100,000 that's for sure.

[bluegirl617]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3672298.stm

Here's a good article. We will never really no the answer to how many died which is really sad.

bluegirl617

[bseitz]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3672298.stm

Here's a good article. We will never really no the answer to how many died which is really sad.

bluegirl617

Unofficial estimates of the civilian toll vary wildly, from at least 10,000 to more than 37,000.
The Lancet somehow managed to come up with a number nearly 3 times the highest estimate. I think we can conclude, based on past history, that fewer actually innocent civilians died than would have been the case had Saddam been left in power. A very good thing.

[WJM-WJM]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3672298.stm

Here's a good article. We will never really no the answer to how many died which is really sad.

bluegirl617

here is the database that is referenced in that article

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/

[Davenumber40]

:thumbsup

Wait a minute if THEY are making claims then THEY must support thier own analysis. You just don't assume they are right. How would any of us have information capable of coming up with a number. At least the lancet article was done with actual data. The fact that you are even asking is ridiculous. The Lancet is also a far more creditable source then a blog.

bluegirl617

Exactly.

[bseitz]

:thumbsup

Exactly.
Exactly what? Did you actually understand that gibberish?