[Boogieman]

“Sample size is irrelevant here. What matters is what killed them.”

But the conclusion that something unusual is going on at all is based on the calculation of an unusual increase in the death rate, and that calculation is invalid because it’s done with improper methodology.

Now if you want to go and find the autopsy reports and find out what killed them, they you have a different route to say something unusual is going on, but that’s not the route Kirsch is trying to take.

[fr_freak]

But the conclusion that something unusual is going on at all is based on the calculation of an unusual increase in the death rate...

It's not just based on an unusual increase in the death rate. It's based on the unusual increase in death rate among people in a category which should have a much lower death rate. That is the anomaly.

For example, I want to know why so many young athletes are dropping dead on the field. In the old days, if some athlete dropped dead on the field (which did occasionally happen), people were flabbergasted, and immediately wanted to know what killed him, precisely because of the anomaly. Residents dropping dead in the nursing home isn't nearly as mysterious.