On the matter of COLB numbering, this was covered rather well in that massive thread you started a month ago:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2457491/posts
In this thread Buckeye Texan offers a few possible explanations for the non-sequential numbering.
One example from that thread (post #96):
“Let’s suppose that there was an authorized registrar at the hospital. She likely would have been a head nurse or someone like that. It’s likely that she would have been the one to stamp the date filed because it seems to coincide with the date the doctor signed the certificate. Her signature wouldn’t be enough even in 1961. She would have needed to reflect a date somewhere.
Then let’s suppose that her weekly stack of certificates are sent to the state for verification and certificate number assignment. The clerk at the state registrar’s office receives a pile of paperwork with the 8th on the bottom and the 11th on the top because that’s how the hospital stacked it in their outgoing tray. The clerk approves and stamps the certificate number on each paper working from the top down in the stack.”
BT may be right or he may be wrong. But the scenarios he offers are not outside the realm of possibility.
Now, you may not agree with BT’s speculation. And that is fine. Just please recognize the pitfalls of drawing appealing conclusions from limited information based on very small population samples.
Especially since no one knows with any certainty just how this process was actually done fifty years ago.
Also consider that no one has produced any evidence that Hawaiian BC numbers really should be sequential. Maybe a sample of BC’s from that period would show perfect sequence for all but BHO’s. Then you'd have a much more convincing argument.
Maybe the numbers would be jumping all over the place. In which case your theory falls apart.
It's not enough to just hypothesize how things might have been. Theories need to be tested. Especially when we want to use them as a basis for strong claims
The date on the COLB, “Date filed”, is not put on by the hospital. It’s put on by the state at the same time the number is given. That fact totally nullifies the argument you cited. I’ve not seen any prospective scenario that gets around that snag.
The CDC Vital Stats Report for 1961 notes that certificate numbers were given in ascending order. That’s the standard they expect; they considered their 50% sampling accurate because of that. And that’s the pattern we see in the BC’s.
I just don’t think “Sh!t happens” is the best way of explaining data that doesn’t fit the protocols. If scientists did that with data we’d never learn anything.