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Sports » rec.sport.football.college » Lies, damned lies...
| Lies, damned lies... [message #725992] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 06:10 |
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(Apologies for xpost, I'm lazy tonight. Or my 3-year-old
has exhausted me. Feel free to redirect follow-ups.)
Choose one:
a) The US has 36 million troops in Iraq
b) All homicides in California have been murders of
police and soldiers
c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
some people will go to to lie with numbers.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=476 80
rich
--
-to reply, it's hot not warm
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\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ The Bill Clinton of RSFC
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #725996 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 06:14 |
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Ok. How many Iraqi innocents died?
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #725999 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 06:19 |
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"Frank Sullivan" <gimbal.locked [at] gmail.com> wrote in
news:1133586888.121617.100800 [at] g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Ok. How many Iraqi innocents died?
Seventeen and one half. The one half was an Iraqi virgin who had impure
thoughts about Mel Gibson and consequently was only half innocent.
--
"I wish people who had trouble communicating would just shut up."
-- Tom Lehrer
http://www.livejournal.com/users/jayfurr/
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726003 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 06:24 |
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Quiet, rich hammett <bubbarichau [at] warmmail.com> -- I'm transmitting rage.
> (Apologies for xpost, I'm lazy tonight. Or my 3-year-old
> has exhausted me. Feel free to redirect follow-ups.)
>
> Choose one:
>
> a) The US has 36 million troops in Iraq
> b) All homicides in California have been murders of
> police and soldiers
> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>
> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=476 80
>
> rich
>
Give the guy a break: he's working up his resume to get a job figuring BCS
rankings.
--
------------------------------------------------------------ ------------
James Schrumpf http://www.hilltopper.net
We Must Protect this Couch!
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726012 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 06:32 |
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rich hammett wrote:
> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
in California:
"Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
and British military personnel in Iraq.
According to the report "Crime in California 2004," compiled by
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, there were 2,394 reported
homicides in the Golden State last year. That compares with 905 deaths
of coalition forces in Iraq, chiefly Americans and Brits, during the
same time period."
Therefore there are as many troops in Iraq as there are people in
California. Those of you who say we didn't go in with overwhelming
force must stand corrected. Now lemme try one of them smilies-- :-)
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726020 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 06:46 |
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On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal _Lancet_
evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
To compare Iraq to California:
About 365 000 californians should have died too soon in couple of years
and we woulnd't ever know exact figure ..
(265% more than Iraq = 3.65 x Iraq ? right?)
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726031 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 07:19 |
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"Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com> wrote in
news:1133588812.311721.236010 [at] g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal _Lancet_
> evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
That Lancet study is poorly done. The actual range of estimated civilian
deaths was something on the order of about 10,000-100,000. That is a
wide range that lends NO credence to the 100,000 number being selected
over the 10,000 number. It was a politically biased article and never
should have made it to print, at least in the form it was written.
MH
--
Ten of Spades
Aggee Fedayeen Chief
Supreme Ruler of the Obvious
"We just got outplayed today. That's the bottom line. And we got
outcoached."
- OU Head Coach Bob Stoops following the Texas A&M game, Nov 9, 2002
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726033 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 07:27 |
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"rich hammett" <bubbarichau [at] warmmail.com> wrote in message
news:11p2a6c2bkvut69 [at] corp.supernews.com...
> (Apologies for xpost, I'm lazy tonight. Or my 3-year-old
> has exhausted me. Feel free to redirect follow-ups.)
>
> Choose one:
>
> a) The US has 36 million troops in Iraq
> b) All homicides in California have been murders of
> police and soldiers
> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>
> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=476 80
The scary thing is, Washington D.C. actually DID have a murder rate
comparable to the rate of soldiers killed in Iraq. The DC figure is 33 per
100,000, while the US soldiers in Iraq figure is 70 per 100,000. For
comparison, California's is 6.6 per 100,000.
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726051 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 09:45 |
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On Sat, 03 Dec 2005, "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal _Lancet_
> evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
Actually, they gave a confidence range based on their sample, and the
100K was the high end of the range. IIRC the low end was "only" 10K.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726065 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 12:59 |
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bdbryant [at] mail.utexas.edu (Bobby D. Bryant) wrote in
news:dmrlub$s7a$1 [at] geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
> On Sat, 03 Dec 2005, "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal
>> _Lancet_ evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
>
> Actually, they gave a confidence range based on their sample,
> and the 100K was the high end of the range. IIRC the low end
> was "only" 10K.
>
100K was the middle of the range. The high end was close to 200K.
--
Michael Ikeda mmikeda [at] erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726072 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 14:43 |
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Matthew Hennig wrote:
> "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com> wrote in
> news:1133588812.311721.236010 [at] g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> > On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal _Lancet_
> > evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
>
> That Lancet study is poorly done. The actual range of estimated civilian
> deaths was something on the order of about 10,000-100,000.
Bullshit.
The actual range was 8,000 - 194,000.
"We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000)
during the post-war period."
If you have to tell lies, at least try to tell ones that can't be
exposed by < 30 seconds of research.
> That is a
> wide range that lends NO credence to the 100,000 number being selected
> over the 10,000 number.
The actual range, however, does.
> It was a politically biased article and never
> should have made it to print, at least in the form it was written.
Rather like your post then.
Roy
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726097 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 16:07 |
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"rthearle [at] hotmail.com" <rthearle [at] hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>Matthew Hennig wrote:
>> That Lancet study is poorly done. The actual range of estimated civilian
>> deaths was something on the order of about 10,000-100,000.
>
>Bullshit.
>
>The actual range was 8,000 - 194,000.
> [snip] ....
>> That is a
>> wide range that lends NO credence to the 100,000 number being selected
>> over the 10,000 number.
>
>The actual range, however, does.
>
No, it does not. That range is so large it is almost useless. Choosing
*any* one number in such a large range is unjustified. When the error
bar is almost as large as the mean, no valid conclusions are really
possible.
[Please do not take this as indicating support for the war in Iraq].
--
The peace of God be with you.
Stanley Friesen
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726124 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 17:33 |
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On Sat, 03 Dec 2005, Michael Ikeda <mmikeda [at] erols.com> wrote:
> bdbryant [at] mail.utexas.edu (Bobby D. Bryant) wrote in
> news:dmrlub$s7a$1 [at] geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>
>> On Sat, 03 Dec 2005, "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal
>>> _Lancet_ evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
>>
>> Actually, they gave a confidence range based on their sample,
>> and the 100K was the high end of the range. IIRC the low end
>> was "only" 10K.
>
> 100K was the middle of the range. The high end was close to 200K.
Are you sure? Your post is the first time I ever heard 200K mentioned.
--
Bobby Bryant
Austin, Texas
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726135 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 17:47 |
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Matthew Hennig wrote:
> "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com> wrote in
> news:1133588812.311721.236010 [at] g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> > On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal _Lancet_
> > evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
>
> That Lancet study is poorly done. The actual range of estimated civilian
> deaths was something on the order of about 10,000-100,000. That is a
> wide range that lends NO credence to the 100,000 number being selected
> over the 10,000 number. It was a politically biased article and never
> should have made it to print, at least in the form it was written.
>
c'mon matt.....it's a peer-reviewed journal article in the freakin
lancet. We aren't talking about an oped piece in the Nation, Mother
Jones, etc...........
> MH
>
> --
> Ten of Spades
> Aggee Fedayeen Chief
> Supreme Ruler of the Obvious
>
> "We just got outplayed today. That's the bottom line. And we got
> outcoached."
> - OU Head Coach Bob Stoops following the Texas A&M game, Nov 9, 2002
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726147 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 18:10 |
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"rthearle [at] hotmail.com" <rthearle [at] hotmail.com> wrote in
news:1133617383.089453.243080 [at] g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
> Matthew Hennig wrote:
>> "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com> wrote in
>> news:1133588812.311721.236010 [at] g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>>
>> > On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal _Lancet_
>> > evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
>>
>> That Lancet study is poorly done. The actual range of estimated
>> civilian deaths was something on the order of about 10,000-100,000.
>
> Bullshit.
>
> The actual range was 8,000 - 194,000.
>
> "We estimate there were 98,000 extra deaths (95% CI 8000-194 000)
> during the post-war period."
>
> If you have to tell lies, at least try to tell ones that can't be
> exposed by < 30 seconds of research.
>
>> That is a
>> wide range that lends NO credence to the 100,000 number being
>> selected over the 10,000 number.
>
> The actual range, however, does.
>
>> It was a politically biased article and never
>> should have made it to print, at least in the form it was written.
>
> Rather like your post then.
I didn't bother to look it up because the range was so varied. My point
was in a range so large there is no way to pick one number over the
other. That the article was flawed is true and that it should not have
been published is true.
MH
--
Ten of Spades
Aggee Fedayeen Chief
Supreme Ruler of the Obvious
"We just got outplayed today. That's the bottom line. And we got
outcoached."
- OU Head Coach Bob Stoops following the Texas A&M game, Nov 9, 2002
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726152 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 18:25 |
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On 2 Dec 2005 21:14:48 -0800, "Frank Sullivan"
<gimbal.locked [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>Ok. How many Iraqi innocents died?
>
Do we know that any did?
Hugh
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726207 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 20:39 |
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"thissteve" <thissteve [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1133587944.046663.222120 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> rich hammett wrote:
>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>
> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
> in California:
>
> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
> and British military personnel in Iraq.
1000 soldiers dead in a year of 200,000. That's 500 per 100k.
2400 homicides in CA with population 36M. That's 7 per 100k.
What am I missing?
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726215 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 20:49 |
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"Dale" <dmgreer [at] nspm.airmail.net> wrote in message
news:iVakf.29062$Zv5.4852 [at] newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
> "rich hammett" <bubbarichau [at] warmmail.com> wrote in message
> news:11p2a6c2bkvut69 [at] corp.supernews.com...
>> (Apologies for xpost, I'm lazy tonight. Or my 3-year-old
>> has exhausted me. Feel free to redirect follow-ups.)
>>
>> Choose one:
>>
>> a) The US has 36 million troops in Iraq
>> b) All homicides in California have been murders of
>> police and soldiers
>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>>
>> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=476 80
>
> The scary thing is, Washington D.C. actually DID have a murder rate
> comparable to the rate of soldiers killed in Iraq. The DC figure is 33 per
> 100,000, while the US soldiers in Iraq figure is 70 per 100,000. For
> comparison, California's is 6.6 per 100,000.
70 per 100k? In October, 96 soldiers were killed in a force of approximately
140k. That's a 70 per 100k rate...but for one month.
For DC to have that high a rate, there would have to be 400 murders per
month. The most they have ever had in a year is 482.
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| Re: Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726224 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 21:02 |
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On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 14:39:09 -0500, "Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com>
enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>"thissteve" <thissteve [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:1133587944.046663.222120 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> rich hammett wrote:
>>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>>
>> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
>> in California:
>>
>> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
>> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
>> and British military personnel in Iraq.
>
>1000 soldiers dead in a year of 200,000. That's 500 per 100k.
>2400 homicides in CA with population 36M. That's 7 per 100k.
>
>What am I missing?
>
The population of Iraq is not 200,000?
--
Bob.
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726225 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 21:02 |
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In message <OYGdnSo4qN79aQzenZ2dnUVZ_sydnZ2d [at] comcast.com>, Geoff
<gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com> writes
>"thissteve" <thissteve [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message
>news:1133587944.046663.222120 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> rich hammett wrote:
>>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>>
>> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
>> in California:
>>
>> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
>> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
>> and British military personnel in Iraq.
>
>1000 soldiers dead in a year of 200,000. That's 500 per 100k.
>2400 homicides in CA with population 36M. That's 7 per 100k.
>
>What am I missing?
>
>
I think that they're comparing absolute rates, not relative rates. (On
those grounds Monaco, Liechtenstein, Andorra and the Vatican are
remarkably law-abiding.)
--
alias Ernest Major
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.362 / Virus Database: 267.13.11/191 - Release Date: 02/12/2005
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726226 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 21:03 |
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thissteve wrote:
> rich hammett wrote:
>
>>c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>
>
> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
> in California:
>
> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
> and British military personnel in Iraq.
>
> According to the report "Crime in California 2004," compiled by
> California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, there were 2,394 reported
> homicides in the Golden State last year. That compares with 905 deaths
> of coalition forces in Iraq, chiefly Americans and Brits, during the
> same time period."
>
> Therefore there are as many troops in Iraq as there are people in
> California. Those of you who say we didn't go in with overwhelming
> force must stand corrected. Now lemme try one of them smilies-- :-)
>
Your logic is peculiar. You apparently suggest that more deaths among
soldiers would have occured had they stayed home. When you get wowzerly
counterintuitive results, you ought to rethink your argument.
..
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726257 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 21:42 |
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bdbryant [at] mail.utexas.edu (Bobby D. Bryant) wrote in
news:dmshcq$9e6$1 [at] geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
> On Sat, 03 Dec 2005, Michael Ikeda <mmikeda [at] erols.com> wrote:
>
>> bdbryant [at] mail.utexas.edu (Bobby D. Bryant) wrote in
>> news:dmrlub$s7a$1 [at] geraldo.cc.utexas.edu:
>>
>>> On Sat, 03 Dec 2005, "Kari Tikkanen" <ktikkane [at] gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On October or November 2004 number of doctor's journal
>>>> _Lancet_ evaluated that 100 000 Iraqi civilians had died.
>>>
>>> Actually, they gave a confidence range based on their sample,
>>> and the 100K was the high end of the range. IIRC the low end
>>> was "only" 10K.
>>
>> 100K was the middle of the range. The high end was close to
>> 200K.
>
> Are you sure? Your post is the first time I ever heard 200K
> mentioned.
>
Yes. Just double-checked the abstract on EBSCO (one of the
services providing web access to magazines).
One note is that the range is for NET deaths. That is, they
estimated the death rate before and after the invasion and used the
difference to estimate the excess number of deaths in the post-
invasion periods.
Net deaths=(# deaths post-invasion) - (# deaths expected at pre-
invasion death rate)
In other words, a key conclusion of the paper is that the death
rate is higher after the invasion than it was before the invasion,
although there is a wide range of uncertainty over the extent of
the increase.
This is not to be considered an endorsement of the paper itself as
I've never read it closely enough to provide a serious evaluation
of the methodology.
--
Michael Ikeda mmikeda [at] erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726258 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 21:43 |
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In rec.sport.football.college Geoff <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com> sanoi, hitaasti kuin hämähäkki:
> "thissteve" <thissteve [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1133587944.046663.222120 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> rich hammett wrote:
>>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>>
>> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
>> in California:
>>
>> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
>> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
>> and British military personnel in Iraq.
> 1000 soldiers dead in a year of 200,000. That's 500 per 100k.
> 2400 homicides in CA with population 36M. That's 7 per 100k.
> What am I missing?
A sense of humor?
rich
--
-to reply, it's hot not warm
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
\ Rich Hammett http://home.hiwaay.net/~rhammett
/ The Bill Clinton of RSFC
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726259 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 21:45 |
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Stanley Friesen <sarima [at] friesen.net> wrote in
news:m0d3p1hcko3t1c0d4scpph66cdqh52dqhf [at] 4ax.com:
> "rthearle [at] hotmail.com" <rthearle [at] hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>Matthew Hennig wrote:
>>> That Lancet study is poorly done. The actual range of
>>> estimated civilian deaths was something on the order of about
>>> 10,000-100,000.
>>
>>Bullshit.
>>
>>The actual range was 8,000 - 194,000.
>> [snip] ....
>>> That is a
>>> wide range that lends NO credence to the 100,000 number being
>>> selected over the 10,000 number.
>>
>>The actual range, however, does.
>>
> No, it does not. That range is so large it is almost useless.
> Choosing *any* one number in such a large range is unjustified.
> When the error bar is almost as large as the mean, no valid
> conclusions are really possible.
>
> [Please do not take this as indicating support for the war in
> Iraq].
>
One should note that, assuming the validity of the methodology, it
is a valid conclusion that the number of civilian deaths was higher
after the invasion since the range of net deaths does not include
zero.
(That is what is being estimated: the number of civilian deaths in
excess of that expected based on pre-invasion death rates)
--
Michael Ikeda mmikeda [at] erols.com
"Telling a statistician not to use sampling is like telling an
astronomer they can't say there is a moon and stars"
Lynne Billard, past president American Statistical Association
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726289 ] |
Sa, 03 Dezember 2005 22:38 |
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thissteve wrote:
> rich hammett wrote:
>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>
> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
> in California:
>
> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
> and British military personnel in Iraq.
>
> According to the report "Crime in California 2004," compiled by
> California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, there were 2,394 reported
> homicides in the Golden State last year. That compares with 905 deaths
> of coalition forces in Iraq, chiefly Americans and Brits, during the
> same time period."
>
> Therefore there are as many troops in Iraq as there are people in
> California. Those of you who say we didn't go in with overwhelming
> force must stand corrected. Now lemme try one of them smilies-- :-)
I am against United States involvement in the internal affairs of
California. I say let the Californians do for themselves. We should not
send American boys to do for California boys what California boys ain't got
the balls to be doing for their damn selves.
--
v/r Beau
Drugs turn you into hippies. And hippies suck, so drugs are bad.
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726408 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 01:41 |
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MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
September 5, 2005
MEDIA ALERT: BURYING THE LANCET - PART 1
An Exchange Between The Independent's Mary Dejevsky And Lancet Author Les
Roberts
"It is odd that the logic of epidemiology embraced by the press every day
regarding new drugs or health risks somehow changes when the mechanism of
death is their armed forces." (Les Roberts, Johns Hopkins School of Public
Health)
As a test of the independence and honesty of the mass media, few tasks are
more revealing than that of reporting our own government's responsibility
for the killing of innocents abroad. In an age of 'converged' political
parties and globalised corporate influence, few establishment groups have
any interest in seeing such horrors exposed, while many have much to lose.
Corporate journalists are therefore subject to two very real, competing
pressures:
1) the moral, human pressure of reporting honestly our responsibility for
mass killing, and
2) state-corporate pressure and flak punishing dissent and rewarding
servility to power.
The results tell us much about the moral and political health of our media
and our democracy.
On July 20 an article by Terry Kirby and Elizabeth Davies in the Independent
noted that a November 2004 report in the Lancet had estimated Iraqi civilian
deaths at nearly 100,000, but that the methodology "was subsequently
criticised". (Kirby and Davies, 'Iraq conflict claims 34 civilians lives
each day as "anarchy" beckons,' The Independent, July 20, 2005)
The report in question was produced by some of the world's leading research
organisations - the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in
Baltimore, Columbia University, and Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriya University -
and was published in one of the world's most prestigious science journals -
The Lancet. We were therefore keen to know which criticisms Kirby and Davies
had in mind. We wrote to the Independent and Kirby replied on July 22:
"So far as I am aware, the Lancet's report was criticised by the Foreign
Office." (Kirby to David Edwards, July 22, 2005)
Also on July 20, an Independent editorial claimed that the Lancet findings
had been reached "by extrapolating from a small sample... While never
completely discredited, those figures were widely doubted". (Leader, 'The
true measure of the US and British failure,' The Independent, July 20, 2005)
We challenged the Independent's Mary Dejevsky, senior leader writer on
foreign affairs:
"What is the basis for the claim that the sample was 'small'? The report
authors told me that the sample was standard for research of this kind, so
that 'we have the scientific strength to say what we have said with great
certainty. I doubt any Lancet paper has gotten as much close inspection in
recent years as this one has!'"(David Edwards to Mary Dejevsky, July 21,
2005)
Dejevsky responded on August 10:
"personally, i think there was a problem with the extrapolation technique,
because - while the sample may have been standard for that sort of thing -
it seemed small from a lay perspective (i remember at the time) for the
conclusions being drawn and there seemed too little account taken of the
different levels of unrest in different regions. my main point, though, was
less based on my impression than on the fact that this technique exposed the
authors to the criticisms/dismissal that the govt duly made, and they had
little to counter those criticisms with, bar the defence that their methods
were standard for those sort of surveys.
regards, mary" (August 10, 2005)
We responded on August 18:
"Thanks, Mary. You say that 'personally' you 'think there was a problem with
the extrapolation technique' because while the sample was standard it was
'small from a lay perspective'. Your argument then is that the problem with
the extrapolation technique was that people like you had a problem with it
because the sample seemed too small. That's a deeply shocking response from
a senior journalist writing in a serious newspaper about such an important
report. We are talking about +our+ responsibility for the mass death of
civilians, after all.
"Should the methodology not be judged by the standards of science and reason
rather than some ill-informed 'lay perspective'? Why on earth would we judge
anything of importance by the standards of an ill-informed view?
"Your claim that the authors had little with which to counter criticism is
flatly false. I can send you many powerful replies provided to us by the
report authors in response to a range of (mostly trivial) criticisms we
found in the media.
Best wishes
David Edwards"
Dejevsky replied the same day:
"thanks - i obviously sounded more off-hand than i intended. i just feel
that extrapolation may be entirely sound when you can project over
relatively uniform areas (subject, geographical whatever), but that - common
sense suggests - it will be less reliable when the situation is so uneven,
as in iraq. this may be unjust and ill-informed, and maybe the arguments
from the report's authors were not sufficiently aired because they were - in
effect - suppressed. if you have some of the counter arguments i would be
interested to see them (beyond the defence that the methodology is standard,
tried and tested etc).
"incidentally, i think it is absolutely legitimate, and right, for
journalists to apply a common sense standard to scientific arguments and
methods. we should have been far more exacting over the intelligence
methodology that gave us saddam's wmd, for instance. all the best, mary"
(August 18, 2005)
This was a challenge we had to accept. We were disturbed by Dejevsky's
response and were keen to know what the team behind the Lancet report would
make of it. We contacted Les Roberts, a world renowned epidemiologist and
lead author of the report. Roberts responded on August 22 with an email
which he asked us to forward to the Independent:
"Dear Mr. Kirby and Ms. Dejevsky,
"I was disappointed to hear that you felt our study was in some way
dismissed by Jack Straw's anemic response to our report in the Lancet last
November. Serious reviews of our work and the criticisms of it were run in
the Financial Times, the Economist, the Chronicle of Higher Education
(attached above) and the WSJ [Wall Street Journal] Online on August 5th.
Closer to home, John Rentoul of the Independent solicited a response to the
Jack Straw letter last Nov. 21st and we responded with the attached letter
[Not provided here]. I am told that it was printed by your paper.
"Many people, like Ms. Dejevsky, have used the word extrapolation to
describe what we did. When I hear people use that word they mean what is
described in my Webster's Unabridged: '1. Statistics. to estimate the value
of a variable outside its tabulated or observed range.' By this definition
and the one I hear used by everyone on this side of the Atlantic, we did not
extrapolate. We did sample. We drew conclusions from within the confines of
that universe from which we sampled. Aside from a few homeless and transient
households that did not appear in the 2002 Ministry of Health figures or
households who had been dissolved or killed since, every existing household
in Iraq had an equal chance that we would visit them through our
randomization process.
"I understand that you feel that the sample was small: this is most
puzzling. 142 post-invasion deaths in 988 households is a lot of deaths, and
for the setting, a lot of interviews. There is no statistical doubt
mortality is up, no doubt that violence is the main cause, and no doubt that
the coalition forces have caused far more of these violent deaths than the
insurgents (p<.0000001).
"In essence this is an outbreak investigation. If your readers hear about a
sample with 10 cases of mad cow disease in 1000 British citizens randomly
tested, I am sure they would have no doubt there was an outbreak. In 1993,
when the US Centers for Disease Control randomly called 613 households in
Milwaukee and concluded that 403,000 people had developed Cryptosporidium in
the largest outbreak ever recorded in the developed world, no one said that
613 households was not a big enough sample. It is odd that the logic of
epidemiology embraced by the press every day regarding new drugs or health
risks somehow changes when the mechanism of death is their armed forces.
"The comments of Ms. Dejevsky regarding representativeness '(it seemed small
from a lay perspective (i remember at the time) for the conclusions being
drawn and there seemed too little account taken of the different levels of
unrest in different regions. my main point, though, was less based on my
impression than on the fact that this technique exposed the authors to the
criticisms/dismissal that the govt duly made, and they had little to counter
those criticisms with, bar the defence that their methods were standard for
those sort of surveys.)' are also cause for concern because she seems to
have not understood that this was a random sample.
"By picking random neighborhoods proportional to population, we are likely
to account for the natural variability of ethnicity, income, and violence.
Her words above strongly suggest that the Falluja numbers should be
included, rather than being used to temper the results from the other 32
neighborhoods. Please understand how extremely conservative we were: we did
a survey estimating that ~285,000 people have died due to the first 18
months of invasion and occupation and we reported it as at least ~100,000.
"Finally, there are now at least 8 independent estimates of the number or
rate of deaths induced by the invasion of Iraq. The source most favored by
the war proponents (Iraqbodycount.org) is the lowest. Our estimate is the
third from highest. Four of the estimates place the death toll above
100,000. The studies measure different things. Some are surveys, some are
based on surveillance which is always incomplete in times of war. The three
lowest estimates are surveillance based.
"The key issues are supported by all the estimates that attribute deaths to
the various causes: violence is way up post-invasion and the Coalition is
responsible for many times more deaths than are the insurgents. The exact
number is less important that these two indisputable facts which helps us to
understand why things are going badly and how to fix them.
I hope these thoughts are helpful.
Sincerely,
Les Roberts"
Perhaps most damning in Roberts' reply - in light of media criticism of the
Lancet's alleged exaggeration of civilian deaths - was his refutation of the
claim that the uneven levels of violent unrest in Iraq compromised the
accuracy of the figures. In fact the study not only accounted for this
variability, it erred on the side of caution by excluding data from Fallujah
where deaths were unusually high. Moreover, other violent hotspots - such as
Ramadi, Tallafar and Najaf - were all passed over in the sample by random
chance. This suggests that the actual total of civilian deaths is likely to
be higher than 100,000. Indeed, it would make far more sense for the media
to be criticising the report authors for under-estimating the number of
deaths.
We wrote to Dejevsky asking if she had received Roberts' response. She
replied on September 1:
"yes, and i understand the arguments. but i stick to my position that
extrapolation, however scientific and well-thought through is no substitute
for real figures. i know that the 'real' figures here do not exist, but i
still think that extrapolation has obvious drawbacks which lay the resulting
figures open to question - and therefore vulnerable to govt spokesmen who
seek to discredit them. incidentally, my view on extrapolation is really
neither here nor there. my chief objection to it is, as i have just said,
that it lays the figures themselves open to question by those who have an
interest in discrediting them.
all the best, mary"
Edward Herman, co-author with Noam Chomsky of the classic media study,
Manufacturing Consent, commented on this latest response:
"Massive incompetence in support of a war-apologetic agenda. Dejevsky
objects to the figures because they are vulnerable to discrediting for
reasons that make no sense. I wonder if she finds sampling discreditable in
all cases." (Email to Media Lens, September 1, 2005)
This is something we were keen to find out by examining media responses to
other cases of sampling (see below and Part 2).
The Puzzled Epidemiologist
It is understandable that Roberts was puzzled by Kirby's and Dejevsky's
responses. After all, in 2000 Roberts began the first of three surveys in
Congo for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in which he used methods
akin to those of the Iraq study. Roberts' first survey estimated that an
astonishing 1.7 million people had died in Congo over 22 months of armed
conflict - on average 2,600 people were dying every day. The IRC's
president, Reynold Levy, put the figures in perspective:
"It's as if the entire population of Houston was wiped off the face of the
Earth in a matter of months." (Hrvoje Hranjski and Victoria Brittain, '2,600
a day dying in Congolese war,' The Guardian, June 10, 2000)
As Roberts says, the reaction could not have been more different:
"Tony Blair and Colin Powell quoted those results time and time again
without any question as to the precision or validity." (Quoted, Lila
Guterman, 'Researchers Who Rushed Into Print a Study of Iraqi Civilian
Deaths Now Wonder Why It Was Ignored,' The Chronicle Of Higher Education,
January 27, 2005; http://chronicle.com/free/2005/01/2005012701n.htm)
Indeed, within a month of Roberts' IRC report being published, the UN
Security Council passed a resolution that all foreign armies must leave
Congo, and later that year, the United Nations called for $140 million in
aid to the country, more than doubling its previous annual request. Citing
the study, the US State Department announced an additional $10 million for
emergency programmes in Congo.
In his October 2001 speech to the Labour party conference, Tony Blair said
the international community could resolve many of the world's worst
conflicts:
"It could, with our help, sort out the blight that is the continuing
conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where three million people
have died through war or famine in the last decade." ('Part one of the
speech by prime minister, Tony Blair, at the Labour Party conference,' The
Guardian, October 2, 2001)
The three million figure was produced by Roberts' study using essentially
the same methodology employed in Iraq. And yet, in rejecting the Lancet
report out of hand, Blair told parliament:
"Figures from the Iraqi Ministry of Health, which are a survey from the
hospitals there, are in our view the most accurate survey there is." (David
Hughes, 'No inquiry into Iraq death toll, says Blair,' Daily Mail, December
9, 2004)
Foreign secretary Jack Straw said the Government would examine the Lancet
figures "with very great care," adding, "it is, however, an estimate that is
not based on standard methodology for assessing casualties". ('This week's
big issues: New attack on Blair's Iraq policy,' The Independent, December 5,
2004)
Like so much that Straw says, this was simply untrue.
Blair's press spokesman said the government had a number of "concerns and
difficulties" about the methodology used, Patrick Wintour and Richard
Norton-Taylor reported in the Guardian:
"'The findings were based on extrapolation and treating Iraq as if it were
all the same in terms of the level of the conflict,' he said of the study
published in the Lancet. 'This is not the case.' (Patrick Wintour and
Richard Norton-Taylor, 'No 10 challenges civilian death toll,' The Guardian,
October 30, 2004)
Then, by way of a classic example of media propaganda, Wintour and
Norton-Taylor presented the government's concocted 'controversy' as genuine:
"The controversy about the study largely turns on whether the sample size of
7,800 people used by the team of US and Iraqi academics was sufficiently
large, and whether the 33 neighbourhoods chosen were representative of the
rest of the country."
This, again, was false. In reality, there was and is no real controversy
about the size of the sample among scientists and serious commentators.
Michael J. Toole, head of the Center for International Health at the Burnet
Institute, an Australian research organisation, said:
"That's a classical sample size." Researchers typically conduct surveys in
30 neighbourhoods, so the Iraq study's total of 33 strengthens its
conclusions. "I just don't see any evidence of significant exaggeration,"
Toole added. (Cited, Guterman, op. cit)
David R. Meddings, a medical officer with the Department of Injuries and
Violence Prevention at the World Health Organization, said surveys of this
kind always have uncertainty because of sampling and the possibility that
people gave incorrect information about deaths in their households. However,
Meddings added:
"I don't think the authors ignored that or understated. Those cautions I
don't believe should be applied any more or any less stringently to a study
that looks at a politically sensitive conflict than to a study that looks at
a pill for heart disease." (Ibid)
The Independent helped fuel the myth of a controversially small sample:
"The Lancet said the research was based on a sample of fewer than 1,000
Iraqi households but said the findings were convincing." (Colin Brown,
'Blair petitioned to set up inquiry into Iraqi war dead,' The Independent,
December 8, 2004)
The media also made much of a comment printed in the Washington Post by Marc
E. Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch, who said of
Roberts' figures: "These numbers seem to be inflated." (Guterman, op. cit)
This was reported in the British media. Unreported anywhere, as far as we
can tell, is the fact that Garlasco has since admitted that he had not read
the Lancet paper at the time and calls his quote in the Post "really
unfortunate". Garlasco says he told the reporter:
"I haven't read it. I haven't seen it. I don't know anything about it, so I
shouldn't comment on it." But "like any good journalist, he got me to."
(Ibid)
The large gap between the Lancet estimate and that of Iraq Body Count - a
constant feature of press coverage - is also not controversial. John
Sloboda, a professor of psychology at the University of Keele, and a
co-founder of Iraq Body Count, says his team's efforts will inevitably lead
to a count smaller than the actual figure because not every death is
reported in the news media.
Dr. Woodruff said, "Les [Roberts] has the most valid estimate." (Ibid)
Dr. Toole agreed: "If anything, the deaths may have been higher [than the
Lancet study's estimate] because what they are unable to do is survey
families where everyone has died." (Ibid)
Journalists, however, know better. Roger Alton, editor of the Observer gave
us his view of the Lancet report:
"I find the methodology a bit doubtful..." (Email to Media Lens, November 1,
2004)
David Aaronovitch, then of the Guardian, told us:
"I have a feeling (and I could be wrong) that the report may be a dud."
(Email to Media Lens, October 30, 2004)
Perhaps Aaronovitch's "feeling" is a close relation of Dejevsky's when she
writes "I just feel" the "extrapolation technique" is unsuited to a
situation as "uneven" as Iraq.
Part 2, comparing media responses to Roberts' work on Congo and Iraq, will
follow shortly.
Write to us at: editor [at] medialens.org
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726411 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 01:45 |
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MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
September 6, 2005
MEDIA ALERT: BURYING THE LANCET - PART 2
Introduction
We learn some ugly truths when we compare the media response to Les Roberts'
report on Iraq with the response to his earlier work in Congo.
In our analysis we found that in both the US and the British press, news
reports initially presented the estimates of 100,000 deaths in Iraq and 1.7
million deaths in Congo without critical comment. The difference lies in the
days, weeks and months that followed. Whereas the Congo figures and
methodology were accepted without challenge, the Iraq figures and
methodology were subjected to steady, withering criticism by both
politicians and journalists (with rare defences in comment pieces by, for
example, Seumas Milne and Terry Jones in the Guardian).
Interestingly, we have found that the right-wing British press appears to
have been marginally more rational and honest in its news reporting on the
Iraq figures than the so-called liberal press. For example, the Times wrote
of the Lancet report in November 2004:
"While doubts have been cast over some of the report's findings... If
anything, researchers appear to have erred on the side of caution, opting to
omit all data from Fallujah, where the mortality rates were significantly
higher." (Sam Lister, 'Body-count report makes a mockery of Labour's
"passion" for statistical analysis,' The Times, November 23, 2004)
The Financial Times even managed to make the obvious point we are making in
this alert:
"This survey technique has been criticised as flawed, but the sampling
method has been used by the same team in Darfur in Sudan and in the eastern
Congo and produced credible results.
"An official at the World Health Organisation said the Iraq study 'is very
much in the league that the other studies are in ... You can't rubbish (the
team) by saying they are incompetent'". (Stephen Fidler, 'Lies, damned lies
and statistics,' Financial Times, November 19, 2004)
By comparison, reports in the 'liberal' press have tended to be more
sceptical of the Lancet estimates and more respectful of government
criticism. For example, foreign correspondent Patrick Cockburn wrote in the
Independent on Sunday:
"The Iraqi Body Count figure is probably much too low, because US military
tactics ensure high civilian losses. American firepower, designed to combat
the Soviet army, cannot be used in built-up areas without killing or
injuring many civilians. Nevertheless a study published in The Lancet,
estimating that 100,000 civilians had died in Iraq, appears to be too high."
(Cockburn, 'Terrified US soldiers are still killing civilians with
impunity,' The Independent on Sunday, April 24, 2005)
Consider the logic - one estimate is "probably much too low" because the
American army uses powerful weapons designed for Cold War combat. That is
considered a serious response to one serious study. Another study "appears
to be too high", presumably because American weapons are not +that+
powerful. One can only feel for epidemiologists like Les Roberts who have to
read these comments on their work.
"Stunning" But "Sound" - Media Response To The Congo Methodology And Numbers
On June 9, 2000, the Washington Post and New York Times both reported the
figure of 1.7 million dead in Congo without challenge. The Guardian did the
same on June 10. The New York Times's 'Quotation Of The Day' on June 9 read:
"'Men with guns come and wreak havoc on a very regular basis. Those men
cause more death by making people flee their homes than actually by shooting
or slitting throats.' Les Roberts, supervisor of a survey that attributes
1.7 million deaths in eastern Congo to two years of war."
The Guardian reported: "a new survey by the International Rescue Committee
(IRC) sheds light on what is happening across this vast country. The New
York-based IRC estimates that 1.7m people have died from the war in the
northern and eastern provinces alone in the past two years." (Hrvoje
Hranjski and Victoria Brittain, '2,600 a day dying in Congolese war,' The
Guardian, June 10, 2000)
On June 24, a Washington Post editorial observed:
"The Roberts estimate is, of course, a rough one. Nevertheless, the report
deserves to be taken seriously as the first comprehensive attempt to
establish the dimensions of the crisis." (Leader, 'Catastrophe in Congo,'
Washington Post, June 24, 2000)
In April 2001, Karl Vick of the Washington Post described updated IRC
figures for Congo (approaching three million dead) as "stunning" such that
they "beggar belief even among some war zone demographers". Vick cited the
reaction of Jeff Drumtra, a researcher for the US Committee for Refugees:
"One doesn't know what to do with that kind of estimate except reach down
and pull your jaw up off the floor." (Vick, 'Death Toll in Congo War May
Approach 3 Million,' Washington Post, April 30, 2001)
Vick continued: "Independent experts who have reviewed both IRC reports say
the surveys appear to be sound." He cited a Western medical epidemiologist
with long experience in humanitarian emergencies:
"'My personal belief is these numbers are the absolute best that could be
done in the circumstances, and there's absolutely no reason to believe any
bias of any kind has found its way in.'"
On May 10, 2001, the Washington Times reported IRC estimates as fact and
sympathetically interviewed Les Roberts, asking him questions such as: "How
does this disaster compare in scope and scale to other African crises?" and
"What can be done?". (Didi Schanche, 'War deaths on "horrifying" rise, IRC
says,' Washington Times, May 10, 2001)
The New York Times wrote in April 2002:
"To policy makers, humanitarian workers or journalists working in
sub-Saharan Africa, one of the hardest things to find is a reliable
number... Because of the scarcity of numbers here, those that do exist tend
to be more politicized and less scrutinized than they are elsewhere."
(Norimitsu Onishi, 'African Numbers, Problems and Number Problems,' New York
Times, April 18, 2002)
Of Roberts' Congo figures, however, the New York Times concluded: "The
agency's figures have been well accepted."
The Guardian reported updated IRC figures in April 2003:
"A total of 4.7 million people have died as a direct result of the
Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war in the past four and a half years,
according to a report released today by the International Rescue Committee,
a leading aid agency."
The article added:
"With a margin for error of 1.6m - a standard proportion is applied to areas
too dangerous for researchers to reach - IRC admits its estimate is
approximate. Yet few aid workers in eastern Congo doubt that a total death
toll of 4.7m is possible.
"'With an almost complete lack of medical care, as well as food insecurity
and violence over a vast area, this number does not seem exaggerated,' said
Noel Tsekouras, the UN humanitarian coordinator for eastern Congo." (James
Astill, 'Away from the worlds gaze 4.7m die in Congo,' The Guardian, April
8, 2003)
We found literally dozens of examples of this kind. Even though the
estimates of death in Congo clearly astonished even experienced observers of
the conflict, the media reported the figures with essentially zero mention
of any concerns about the validity of either the numbers or the methodology.
"Egregious Politicization" - Media Response To The Iraq Methodology And
Numbers
Consider by contrast a June 23, 2005 editorial in the Washington Times in
response to the Lancet report. The paper lamented an instance of "egregious
politicization of what is supposed to be an objective and scientific
journal". The editors explained:
"We're referring to the Lancet's role in trying to influence the U.S.
presidential election with a cynical 'study' of deaths in the Iraq war in
October. The study, led by Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health, purported to show that nearly 100,000 deaths had resulted
from the Iraq war. But as it turned out, Mr. Roberts used less-than-ideal
methods and then overstated his results, possibly by a factor of two or
three."
Echoing the remarkable comments made by the Independent's Mary Dejevsky
about the lack of "real" figures, the editorial continued:
"The method for this study - looking at population figures and surveying a
few thousand Iraqis to ask how many deaths they'd heard of - abstracted the
question and avoided the hard work of actually documenting the deaths."
(Leader, 'The Lancet's Politics,' Washington Times, June 23, 2005)
Following the standard misrepresentation, the Washington Times added:
"In any event, the fine print showed the study didn't really even conclude
100,000 deaths occured. It actually concluded that casualties were somewhere
between 8,000 and 194,000. At the time, the British research group Iraq Body
Count had placed the number of confirmed deaths reported in the media at
around 15,000 - probably a low estimate, but not by a factor of six."
The conclusion was calculated to be as damning as possible:
"Does the publication of one politically motivated study mean the entire
product of a journal is suspect? Of course not. But it rightly raised
eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic and showed that even the most
esteemed and avowedly apolitical institutions can be suspectible to
hijacking."
In December 2004, the Washington Times wrote:
"Or how about the constantly cited figure of 100,000 Iraqis killed by
Americans since the war began, a statistic that is thrown about with total
and irresponsible abandon by opponents of the war. That number, which should
be disputed at every turn by those who care about the truth of what is going
on in Iraq was derived from a controversial study by the British journal of
medicine the Lancet. It is five to six times higher than the highest
estimates from other sources of all Iraqi deaths, be they military or
civilian. The Lancet study relied on reporting of deaths self-reported by
998 families from clusters of 33 households throughout Iraq, a very limited
sample from which to generalize.
"As the Financial Times reported on Nov. 19, even the Lancet study's authors
are now having second thoughts." (Helle Dale, 'Biased coverage in Iraq,'
Washington Times, December 1, 2004)
The New York Times quoted Michael E. O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign
policy studies at the Brookings Institution, who said the Iraq Body Count
figures were within the realm of reason: "We've used their data before. It's
probably not too far off, and it's certainly a more serious work than the
Lancet report." (Hassan M. Fattah, 'Civilian Toll in Iraq Is Placed at
Nearly 25,000,' New York Times, July 20, 2005)
In Britain, the pro-war Observer noted that the Lancet study "was published
soon before the US election, bringing accusations that the respected journal
had become politicised. Journalist Michael Fumenton [sic] of the US-based
TCS [Tech Central Station] website called it 'Al-Jazeera on the Thames'."
Reporter Jamie Doward added:
"The report's authors admit it drew heavily on the rebel stronghold of
Falluja, which has been plagued by fierce fighting. Strip out Falluja, as
the study itself acknowledged, and the mortality rate is reduced
dramatically." (Doward, 'Death in the desert: Why I was right on the 100,000
dead,' The Observer, November 7, 2004)
This foolish rendering of the report was corrected in a 97-word paragraph in
the paper one week later ('For the record,' November 14, 2004), which noted
that Falljuah had in fact of course been stripped out. But the correction
was low-profile and the damage had been done.
In the Guardian, professor of mathematics John Allen Paulos wrote:
"Given the conditions in Iraq, the sample clusters were not only small, but
sometimes not random either... So what's the real number? My personal
assessment, and it's only that, is that the number is somewhat more than the
IBC's confirmed total, but considerably less than the Lancet figure of
100,000." (John Allen Paulos, 'The vital statistics of war,' The Guardian,
December 16, 2004)
We were unable to find a single example anywhere in the British or US press
of a commentator rejecting the Congo figures and offering their own
"personal assessment" in this way.
In an article entitled, 'We should be counting the dead in Iraq, but let's
not get the figures out of proportion like this,' the Independent on
Sunday's chief political commentator and Blair biographer, John Rentoul,
demonstrated standard media ignorance in discussing the Lancet's 100,000
figure:
"However, this number is only the central point of a range that extends from
8,000 to 194,000. This huge disparity was mocked ignorantly by one American
commentator as 'not an estimate, it's a dartboard'. It was also defended,
equally ignorantly, by the editor of The Lancet, who said: 'It's highly
probable the figure is 98,000. Anything more or less is much less probable.'
Both wrong. What the figures say is that there is a 95 per cent chance that
the true figure lies between 8,000 and 194,000... It is statistically
respectable, which is why The Lancet article passed its peer reviews, but it
produces estimates hedged about with great uncertainty.
"And there are good reasons for thinking that the true figure is towards the
lower end of The Lancet's range." (Rentoul, 'We should be counting the dead
in Iraq, but let's not get the figures out of proportion like this,'
December 10, 2004)
And there are good reasons for questioning Rentoul's objectivity. Writing in
the wake of the July 7 London bombings, Rentoul wrote:
"The worst succour that the anti-war left in Britain can give to the
terrorists, however, is to entertain the idea that there is a moral
equivalence between the deliberate killing of civilians and the casualties
of military action in Iraq."
He added that, "even Iraq Body Count, an anti-war campaign, puts the total
attributable to coalition forces at under 10,000, rather than the figure
with an extra zero that is the common misconception of anti-war propaganda".
(Rentoul, 'Islam, blood and grievance,' The Independent, July 24, 2005)
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, Columbia University, Baghdad's
Al-Mustansiriya University, and The Lancet, being, we must presume, anti-war
propagandists.
Writing in the New Statesman, Peter Wilby notes that Rentoul "has written a
reverential biography of Tony Blair, and even the former Guardian (now
Times) columnist David Aaronovitch must concede to him the palm for
unstinting support of new Labour". (Wilby, 'To judge from my e-mails,' New
Statesman, September 5, 2005)
No small achievement.
Conclusion - A Striking Example
Regardless of the rationality or facts of the matter at hand, when the US
and British governments rejected the Lancet's 100,000 figure as wildly
exaggerated and flawed, the US and British media simply fell into line. But
flawed methodology cannot be the determining factor, because the same media
entities expressed zero dissent in response to the same lead researchers
using the same methods in Congo.
The difference in media performance is clearly explained by the stance of
power - the establishment on which the media system depends and of which it
is a part. Indeed it is hard to imagine a more striking example of how the
mass media act as a propaganda system for these interests.
Given the extraordinary gravity of the issue - our governments'
responsibility for the illegal killing of tens, perhaps hundreds, of
thousands of innocent civilians - it is also hard to imagine a more
appalling journalistic failure and betrayal.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for
others. When writing emails to journalists, we strongly urge readers to
maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write to Mary Dejevsky
Email: M.Dejevsky [at] independent.co.uk
Write to Terry Kirby
Email: T.Kirby [at] independent.co.uk
Write to John Rentoul
Email: j.rentoul [at] independent.co.uk
Write to Jamie Doward
Email: jamie.doward [at] observer.co.uk
Write to Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor
Email: alan.rusbridger [at] guardian.co.uk
Write to Roger Alton, Observer editor
Email: roger.alton [at] observer.co.uk
Write to Simon Kelner, Independent editor
Email: s.kelner [at] independent.co.uk
Write to Tristan Davies, Independent on Sunday editor
Email: t.davies [at] independent.co.uk
Please copy all emails to us: editor [at] medialens.org
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|
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726414 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 01:50 |
|
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
September 12, 2005
MEDIA ALERT: BURYING THE LANCET - UPDATE
In our Media Alert, Burying The Lancet - Parts 1 And 2 (September 5 and 6),
we focused on the media response to a November 2004 report in The Lancet
which estimated nearly 100,000 excess civilians deaths in Iraq since the
March 2003 US-UK invasion.
In Part Two, we cited professor of mathematics John Allen Paulos, who wrote
in the Guardian:
"Given the conditions in Iraq, the sample clusters were not only small, but
sometimes not random either... So what's the real number? My personal
assessment, and it's only that, is that the number is somewhat more than the
IBC's confirmed total, but considerably less than the Lancet figure of
100,000." (John Allen Paulos, 'The vital statistics of war,' The Guardian,
December 16, 2004)
We noted that we had not found a single example anywhere in the British or
US press of a commentator rejecting estimates of 1.7 million deaths in Congo
produced by the same lead researcher (Les Roberts) and offering their own
"personal assessment" in this way.
We were surprised to receive this reply from John Allen Paulos the following
day:
"I liked your piece, MEDIA ALERT: BURYING THE LANCET - PARTS 1 AND 2. I
regret making the comment in my Guardian piece that you cite: 'My personal
assessment, and it's only that, is that the number is somewhat more than the
IBC's confirmed total, but considerably less than the Lancet figure of
100,000.' I still have a few questions about the study (moot now), but
mentioning a largely baseless 'personal assessment' was cavalier. I should
simply have stated my doubts about the study's scientific neutrality given
what seemed at the time like an expedient rush to publish it.
John Allen Paulos Math Dept, Temple Univ" (Email to Media Lens, September 7,
2005)
We forwarded this email to Les Roberts - lead author of the Lancet report -
who replied directly to Paulos:
"Dear Dr. Paulos,
I read your note below with some sadness. FYI, there was a rush to publish
as I have said in every major interview I have given.
"A) I have done over 20 mortality surveys in recent years and have never
taken more than a week to produce and release a report (because people dying
is important) until this article. Thus, this was the least rushed mortality
result I have ever produced.
"B) We finished the survey on the 20 Sept. If this had not come out until
mid-Nov. or later, in the politicized lens of Baghdad (where the chief of
police does not allow his name to be made public and where all the newly
trained Iraqi soldiers I saw had bandanas to hide their faces to avoid their
families being murdered.) this would have been seen as the researchers
covering up for the Bush White House until after the election and I am
convinced my Iraqi co-investigators would have been killed. Given that Kerry
and Bush had the same attitude about invading and similar plans for how to
proceed, I never thought it would influence the election and the
investigators never discussed it with each other or briefed any political
player.
"C) if you have information about how and why people in New Orleans were
dying today, would you rush to release it? The Falluja downfall happened
just one week after the study came out and whether you believe the 500 or
the 1600 or the 3600 estimates of associated Iraqi deaths, that alone was
probably more than will occur from this moment on due to Katrina.
"So, we rushed to get it out, I do not understand why the 'study's
scientific neutrality' is influenced or the likelihood that the sample was
valid, the analysis fair. What does neutrality mean? Do people who publish
about malaria deaths need to be neutral about malaria? Yours in confusion
and disgust,
Les Roberts (Copied to Media Lens, September 8, 2005)
We also wrote to Paulos:
"Dear John Allen Paulos
Thanks for the kind words, we appreciate them. We also very much respect
your willingness to express regret over some of what you wrote in the
Guardian. It really is remarkable that so many people have been so cavalier
in considering our responsibility for the mass death of completely innocent
and completely defenceless civilians.
"But even now you continue to suggest that the rush to publish casts doubt
on the accuracy of the report. Surely, again, on such a desperately
important issue, this inaccuracy has to be +demonstrated+ through reasoned
debate rather than merely suggested in passing. Isn't this also a cavalier
comment? According to Les Roberts, the science wasn't rushed at all, but
there were compelling moral reasons to publish the report before the US
elections.
Best wishes
David Edwards and David Cromwell
The Editors - Media Lens" (September 8, 2005)
Paulos replied to both emails, first to Roberts:
"Dear LR,
You start your note with sadness, which I share, and end it with disgust,
which I don't. I wish your study had met a better reception and regret that
my column, although by no means dismissive, was more skeptical than it
should have been. If your response to well-intentioned critics is disgust,
however, then your public relations skills may have been part of the
problem.
Best, JAP" (Copied to Media Lens, September 8, 2005)
Paulos then replied to us:
"A suggestion: use Katrina as a news hook and have LR write an OpEd for the
NY Times (or Newsweek or some plublication with a huge circulation)
explaining sampling, clusters, and the problems associated with counting the
dead. Next explain that this was done in the Congo and finally revisit the
Lancet findings. The sympathy that Katrina arouses might enable him to get
past the political resistance to the Lancet findings (resistance that
probably won't disappear until this abominable war ends). He certainly has
the standing to write such a piece, and the issue is still very important. I
understand now the situation surrounding the studyy's original publication.
I also understand LP's anger, but he should lose the vitriol to get such an
OpEd published. Good luck. Best, JAP" (Email to Media Lens, September 8,
2005)
Paulos appears to agree that it was inappropriate to offer his "personal
estimate" and to suggest that the science behind the Lancet report might
have been somehow "rushed" for political reasons.
Roberts Replies To Rentoul
Also in Part Two of our Media Alert, we noted that John Rentoul, the
Independent on Sunday's chief political commentator, wrote of the Lancet's
100,000 figure:
"However, this number is only the central point of a range that extends from
8,000 to 194,000. This huge disparity was mocked ignorantly by one American
commentator as 'not an estimate, it's a dartboard'. It was also defended,
equally ignorantly, by the editor of The Lancet, who said: 'It's highly
probable the figure is 98,000. Anything more or less is much less probable.'
Both wrong. What the figures say is that there is a 95 per cent chance that
the true figure lies between 8,000 and 194,000... It is statistically
respectable, which is why The Lancet article passed its peer reviews, but it
produces estimates hedged about with great uncertainty.
"And there are good reasons for thinking that the true figure is towards the
lower end of The Lancet's range." (Rentoul, 'We should be counting the dead
in Iraq, but let's not get the figures out of proportion like this,'
December 10, 2004)
Rentoul responded to our alert:
"Dear Mr Edwards and Mr Cromwell
Thank you for your belated interest in the article I wrote in December. I am
grateful to Les Roberts for acknowledging that I invited him to reply to the
Foreign Secretary in the pages of The Independent on Sunday, which he did. I
would invite you to consider the possibility that the 100,000 figure
produced by the Lancet study has not been widely accepted because other
evidence suggests that it is too high, rather than because of a media
conspiracy [sic]. Given The Independent on Sunday's editorial position on
the invasion of Iraq, it seems unlikely that its editors would want to
minimise evidence of casualties.
The fact that no one has challenged the Congo study is no more evidence of
conspiracy than [former New Statesman editor] Peter Wilby's say-so is that
my book on Blair is 'reverential'. The Congo death toll is not
controversial. The Iraq one is.
I draw your attention to a survey of Iraq carried out on behalf of the UNDP
and published in May this year. The Iraq Living Conditions Survey 2004
covered 21,668 households and was the first in recent years to cover all
governorates. Most of the survey took place in April and May 2004, while
fieldwork in Erbil and Dahouk was carried out in August 2004. It suggested
24,000 'war-related deaths' of civilians and military personnel in Iraq,
with a 95 percent confidence interval from 18,000 to 29,000 deaths. This was
in the period of two years before the survey date, which covered the 2003
invasion and one year of the insurgency. Children aged below 18 years
comprised 12 per cent of the deaths due to warfare.
I do not think that commentary on surveys such as these should be confined
to qualified statisticians. I hope I understand probability well enough to
understand that the Lancet study suggested a range of estimates, and that
the actual figure could be at the lower end of the range.
Yours sincerely
John Rentoul" (Email to Media Lens, September 8, 2005)
We forwarded Rentoul's email to Les Roberts, who replied the following day:
"Dear Mr. Rentoul,
Thank you so much for the note below which is the first coherent and
appropriate explanation for the rejection of the Lancet results that David
Edwards has forwarded.
I believe the study to which you refer was actually done by the Iraqi
Government with help from a Norwegian Institute called Fafo. Jon Pederson,
who I have only met once but who I think highly of and has a great
reputation, led the design and analysis support. I have cc:ed him above to
make sure that any errors in my statements here are corrected. The goal of
their survey was very broad and it looked at many issues related to housing
and development. I believe the survey took on average 88 minutes with only a
couple of the questions being related to deaths. Jon expressed to my
colleague Richard Garfield that he felt that their survey did not capture
all deaths. He repeated this sentiment in an Wall Street Journal Online
article last month. In fact, I gather repeat visits to the interviewed
houses after the study was over revealed additional deaths not reported
during the survey.
In contrast, please note that our survey was totally focused on mortality,
that it was conducted almost exclusively by physicians with photo ID's and
who were from a University which is seen as somewhat different than the
Government. Also note that I believe the Fafo study was mostly carried out
in the Spring of 2004 but was delayed when near completion due to
insecurity. Thus, their recall period during the occupation was a few months
shorter than ours and missed the most violent months according to our data.
Thus, given that:
a) we looked at excess deaths from all causes and over 1/3rd of those we
reported were from increased rates of auto accidents and other aspects of
the social disorder,
b) one would have to increase the Fafo number by perhaps 20% or more to have
a comparable time period of occupation, and
c) given that the investigators did not set out to measure mortality and
believe their survey markedly underestimated deaths,
I think the two surveys are not really very inconsistent. I also realize
there was a study that came out with a 128,000 violent death estimate last
July. I have only seen the press summaries and would be keen to read the
actual report if you have it.
Again, thanks for your apparent logic and open mind (as implied by your
engaging Mr. Edwards, and seeking our response to Jack Straw).
Gratefully,
Les Roberts" (Copied to Media Lens, September 9, 2005)
On September 10 this perceptive email to the Independent's leader writer
Mary Dejevsky was forwarded to us from a reader:
"I have been following the 'debate' over the Lancet report with some
interest. A group of respected statistical experts publish a report based on
extensive research in Iraq concluding that some 100,000 civilians have died
since the Iraq invasion.
"This figure is then reported in the media (including the Independent) and
is then astonishingly statistically criticised by non-experts. 'Gut
feelings' and hand-waving arguments are not sufficient methods of evaluating
a piece of statistical research. Imagine that Nature published a paper
suggesting it was now believed that electrons orbit protons in slightly
eccentric orbits for such and such a reason. Would you as a journalist feel
qualified to attack such a report because it just does not sound right?
"The July 20th article by Kirby and Davies stated that the methodology had
been criticised but failed to mention that the critics in mind were actually
the government, rather than some independent experts. The source of the
criticism should have been made clear
"Either the methods used by the Lancet report authors are sound or they are
not. Clearly it is important to know which is the case. The only people
really qualified to determine this are statisticians, preferably those with
experience in this area. I would strongly suggest that the Independent picks
some leading statisticians at random and invites them to review the Lancet
article and publishes a summary of their results.
Regards,
Steven Martin MSci (Cantab)" (Copied to Media Lens, September 10, 2005)
The last suggestion was excellent. Another reader wrote to Dejevsky
suggesting the Independent might cover these latest exchanges. She
responded:
"the people you have to convince are the specialist reporters in this case -
not the comment writers,, as it is they who would put the subject back on
the agenda. regards, mary dejevsky" (Forwarded to Media Lens, September 6,
2005)
So we wrote to one of the "specialist writers", Washington correspondent
Andrew Buncombe. He suggested we write to Dejevsky!
Conclusion - You May Well Ask!
In the last three Media Alerts, Media Lens has allowed the Lancet authors
the first substantive right of reply to criticism - much of it
embarrassingly ill-informed - produced by politicians and journalists.
Readers might well ask how on earth it can be that a website operating on a
shoestring is left to provide such a vital and basic service to the public.
How can it be that powerful, high-tech media corporations with vast
financial and human resources have not managed this feat in almost a year
since the Lancet report was published? How can they somehow not muster the
time, not muster the manpower, not muster the space among the endless tittle
tattle, gossip and blather?
It could not be clearer that Les Roberts (like Gilbert Burnham and others
involved in the production of the report) is willing and able to produce
clear, concise refutations of this criticism almost instantly. As one of the
world's top epidemiologists, Roberts knows what he is talking about, whereas
journalists and politicians manifestly do not. The debates are predictably
non-contests, and therefore allowing Roberts and colleagues to respond
+should+ be a no-brainer.
It speaks volumes about the honesty and independence of our mass media that
it has almost never been allowed to happen.
SUGGESTED ACTION
The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for
others. When writing emails to journalists, we strongly urge readers to
maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.
Write to Mary Dejevsky
Email: M.Dejevsky [at] independent.co.uk
Write to Terry Kirby
Email: T.Kirby [at] independent.co.uk
Write to John Rentoul
Email: j.rentoul [at] independent.co.uk
Write to Jamie Doward
Email: jamie.doward [at] observer.co.uk
Write to Alan Rusbridger, Guardian editor
Email: alan.rusbridger [at] guardian.co.uk
Write to Roger Alton, Observer editor
Email: roger.alton [at] observer.co.uk
Write to Simon Kelner, Independent editor
Email: s.kelner [at] independent.co.uk
Write to Tristan Davies, Independent on Sunday editor
Email: t.davies [at] independent.co.uk
Write to us at: editor [at] medialens.org
This is a free service but we need all the support we can get - please
consider donating to Media Lens: http://www.medialens.org/donate.html
A printer-friendly version of this alert can be found here for approximately
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|
|
|
| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726472 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 04:05 |
|
sull1927 [at] adelphia.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) wrote:
>On 2 Dec 2005 21:14:48 -0800, "Frank Sullivan"
><gimbal.locked [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Ok. How many Iraqi innocents died?
>>
>Do we know that any did?
Oh, I think we can be sure of that. No war fought anywhere that people
actually live has failed to kill some innocents. WWII killed far more
innocents than the *total* deaths on *both* sides in this little brush
war.
--
The peace of God be with you.
Stanley Friesen
|
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726731 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 14:15 |
|
Call me nutso but I always thought a confidence interval was a TEST of
a mean. Not the actual mean that was derived from their observations.
|
|
|
| Re: Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726746 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 14:49 |
|
"Ye Old One" <usenet [at] mcsuk.net> wrote in message
news:ddu3p1tejib1dl69u7frdov51hj3u357qb [at] 4ax.com...
> On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 14:39:09 -0500, "Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com>
> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
>>"thissteve" <thissteve [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>news:1133587944.046663.222120 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>>>
>>> rich hammett wrote:
>>>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>>>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>>>
>>> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
>>> in California:
>>>
>>> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
>>> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
>>> and British military personnel in Iraq.
>>
>>1000 soldiers dead in a year of 200,000. That's 500 per 100k.
>>2400 homicides in CA with population 36M. That's 7 per 100k.
>>
>>What am I missing?
>>
>
> The population of Iraq is not 200,000?
But the population of soldiers in Iraq is about that. Actually it's about
140k making the rate higher.
|
|
|
| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726747 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 14:54 |
|
"rich hammett" <bubbarichau [at] warmmail.com> wrote in message
news:11p2a6c2bkvut69 [at] corp.supernews.com...
> (Apologies for xpost, I'm lazy tonight. Or my 3-year-old
> has exhausted me. Feel free to redirect follow-ups.)
>
> Choose one:
>
> a) The US has 36 million troops in Iraq
> b) All homicides in California have been murders of
> police and soldiers
> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>
> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=476 80
Another lie from the article: "A monthly average of 75 deaths of American
and British forces has remained fairly constant over the last two years."
The number of US fatalities is rising and it is anything but steady:
Mar-03 65
Apr-03 74
May-03 37
Jun-03 30
Jul-03 48
Aug-03 35
Sep-03 31
Oct-03 44
Nov-03 82
Dec-03 40
Jan-04 47
Feb-04 20
Mar-04 52
Apr-04 135
May-04 80
Jun-04 42
Jul-04 54
Aug-04 66
Sep-04 80
Oct-04 63
Nov-04 137
Dec-04 72
Jan-05 107
Feb-05 58
Mar-05 36
Apr-05 52
May-05 80
Jun-05 78
Jul-05 54
Aug-05 85
Sep-05 49
Oct-05 96
|
|
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726771 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 16:11 |
|
On Sat, 03 Dec 2005 19:05:06 -0800, Stanley Friesen
<sarima [at] friesen.net> wrote:
>sull1927 [at] adelphia.net (J. Hugh Sullivan) wrote:
>
>>On 2 Dec 2005 21:14:48 -0800, "Frank Sullivan"
>><gimbal.locked [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Ok. How many Iraqi innocents died?
>>>
>>Do we know that any did?
>
>Oh, I think we can be sure of that. No war fought anywhere that people
>actually live has failed to kill some innocents. WWII killed far more
>innocents than the *total* deaths on *both* sides in this little brush
>war.
>
>--
>The peace of God be with you.
>
>Stanley Friesen
That's pretty much the point. War can't be conducted without suffering
by innocents. But without war innocents suffer also as in Hitler's
slaughter of the Jews and the Japanese rape of parts of Asia and
bombing of Pearl.
If we had not dropped the bombs on Japan how many more US innocents
might have died?
The only argument is whether the end is worth the means and that will
seldom be solved.
Hugh
|
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| Re: Re: Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726774 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 16:14 |
|
On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 08:49:18 -0500, "Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com>
enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>"Ye Old One" <usenet [at] mcsuk.net> wrote in message
>news:ddu3p1tejib1dl69u7frdov51hj3u357qb [at] 4ax.com...
>> On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 14:39:09 -0500, "Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com>
>> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>>
>>>"thissteve" <thissteve [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>news:1133587944.046663.222120 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>>>>
>>>> rich hammett wrote:
>>>>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>>>>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>>>>
>>>> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
>>>> in California:
>>>>
>>>> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
>>>> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
>>>> and British military personnel in Iraq.
>>>
>>>1000 soldiers dead in a year of 200,000. That's 500 per 100k.
>>>2400 homicides in CA with population 36M. That's 7 per 100k.
>>>
>>>What am I missing?
>>>
>>
>> The population of Iraq is not 200,000?
>
>But the population of soldiers in Iraq is about that. Actually it's about
>140k making the rate higher.
>
The comparison made was the number of troops killed in Iraq with the
number of people killed in CA. Not a valid comparison unless the
population figure is based the same.
--
Bob.
|
|
|
| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726828 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 17:55 |
|
"Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in message news:n4KdnSwvpr6CaA_
>>
>> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=476 80
>
> Another lie from the article: "A monthly average of 75 deaths of American
> and British forces has remained fairly constant over the last two years."
>
> The number of US fatalities is rising and it is anything but steady:
>
Have you seen this...?
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html
K.
|
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| Re: Re: Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726869 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 18:48 |
|
"Ye Old One" <usenet [at] mcsuk.net> wrote in message
news:tr16p11u3k0acd36mvkfktp79anlevd87u [at] 4ax.com...
> On Sun, 4 Dec 2005 08:49:18 -0500, "Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com>
> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>
>>"Ye Old One" <usenet [at] mcsuk.net> wrote in message
>>news:ddu3p1tejib1dl69u7frdov51hj3u357qb [at] 4ax.com...
>>> On Sat, 3 Dec 2005 14:39:09 -0500, "Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com>
>>> enriched this group when s/he wrote:
>>>
>>>>"thissteve" <thissteve [at] yahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>>news:1133587944.046663.222120 [at] o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>>>>>
>>>>> rich hammett wrote:
>>>>>> c) This article is a pathetic example of the depths
>>>>>> some people will go to to lie with numbers.
>>>>>
>>>>> Notice the article explicitly says the homicide _rate_ is 265% higher
>>>>> in California:
>>>>>
>>>>> "Recently released crime statistics show the homicide rate in
>>>>> California is 265 percent higher than the death rate suffered by U.S.
>>>>> and British military personnel in Iraq.
>>>>
>>>>1000 soldiers dead in a year of 200,000. That's 500 per 100k.
>>>>2400 homicides in CA with population 36M. That's 7 per 100k.
>>>>
>>>>What am I missing?
>>>>
>>>
>>> The population of Iraq is not 200,000?
>>
>>But the population of soldiers in Iraq is about that. Actually it's about
>>140k making the rate higher.
>>
> The comparison made was the number of troops killed in Iraq with the
> number of people killed in CA. Not a valid comparison unless the
> population figure is based the same.
That's why you use rates. The homicide rate in CA is about 7 per 100k
population. The rate for US soldiers in Iraq is about 600 per 100k. Do you
see?
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726870 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 18:51 |
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"Katt" <kahgfghttt [at] t.com> wrote in message
news:9cFkf.11760$Lf4.5736 [at] newsfe7-win.ntli.net...
> "Geoff" <gebobs [at] yahoo.nospam.com> wrote in message news:n4KdnSwvpr6CaA_
>>>
>>> http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=476 80
>>
>> Another lie from the article: "A monthly average of 75 deaths of American
>> and British forces has remained fairly constant over the last two years."
>>
>> The number of US fatalities is rising and it is anything but steady:
>>
>
> Have you seen this...?
> http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/USfatalities.html
Thanks. No I hadn't. I had done my own analysis. A straight trend line is
not the best fit. But the fact that the trend is toward increasing
fatalities is unmistakeable.
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726875 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 18:58 |
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Geoff wrote:
> That's why you use rates. The homicide rate in CA is about 7 per 100k
> population. The rate for US soldiers in Iraq is about 600 per 100k. Do you
> see?
Do I detect a sampling bias. To compare like with like you should look
at the death rate of our troops in Iraq in comparison with death rates
in the United States. We are loosing more both by ratio and absolute
numbers to traffic accidents than to combat deaths in Iraq.
Bob Kolker
>
>
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726879 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 19:09 |
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And your background in social science /statistics is...???
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| Re: Lies, damned lies... [message #726880 ] |
So, 04 Dezember 2005 19:10 |
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Thanks, Katt, that was a very interesting information I had not come
across before.
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