Posted on 10/22/2006 12:47:13 PM PDT by quidnunc
The recent survey, published in the British medical journal, "The Lancet," claiming over 650,000 civilian deaths due to the liberation of Iraq, was quickly labeled propaganda, not science. Is the survey accurate? The answer is, apparently not. The survey is widely out of sync with casualty counts by other organizations, and by a wide margin. A 2004 study by the same authors claimed 100,000 civilian casualties – a survey at odds with one done by the United Nations at the same time (which estimated 18,000 to 29,000 deaths). To compare this with other studies – the group Iraq Body Count only claims 49,000 civilian deaths, the Brookings Institution reports 62,000, and the Los Angeles Times has reported 50,000 civilian deaths since the liberation of Iraq.
The Lancet survey, conducted by researchers from the American Johns Hopkins University, used a method that is generally acceptable for use in developing countries. This method involves the use of cluster points – interviews with a number of households (usually 10 to 40) in a given neighborhood in that country. This survey apparently only used 47 clusters of 40 people each, for roughly 1,800 people. The 2004 Johns Hopkins study used a grand total of 33 cluster points. This is a very small sample when compared to those of other surveys, which have used far more cluster points. For instance, the 2004 UN survey used 2,200 cluster points. The following year, a group of media outlets used 135 cluster points for their study. A survey in Kosovo used 50 cluster points for a population that was less than 6 percent of Iraq's. A 1992 Harvard study of Iraq used 271 cluster points. A survey of the Congo cited by the authors of the Johns Hopkins study used 750 cluster points.
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(Excerpt) Read more at strategypage.com ...
They walk into a town and see 4 brothers. They lost a brother in the war. So that's 4 men who lost a brother... so that's 4 men killed. See simple math!
the math you describe is hopefully the same type the lib/dem/msm polls have been touting how the republicans will experience a blood bath on election day!!!
You left out part of it. They counted 4 "civilians", but the brother who was killed was a terrorist.
A hate filled liberal professor from John Hopkins came make up with a voodoo science method to estimate the number people killed in Iraq since the start of the war and then the hate filled liberal media took this voodoo science as the absolute truth! Hate is a very destructive power, it kills the brain, the heart, and the soul of the hater.
That's my suspicion anyway, that this is one factor in the skewed numbers. I haven't voiced this suspicion out loud before because I really haven't looked into the study methodology in depth.
That's basically what I thought it was, too.
Everyone knows people who have died. If you added that up for everyone even in this country, the numbers of people (inadvertently recounting most of the same people) died would be greater than the country ever held. Heck, one funeral and visitation could bring 200 people counting the one person as someone they knew who died!.
Idiots.
bump.
The other interesting thing is that there have been similar surveys using "cluster points" by the UN and Harvard, finding much lower casualties, yet neither of those studies received nearly as much publicity.
I wonder why?
Who can blame conscienceless left-wing scientists for publishing scare stories about global warming, ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, deaths in Iraq, or other politically popular matters? That's where the hot research grants are, and that's the way to get massive publicity.
Want to make money and become famous? Then just do pimp science and give the left wing press the stories they want to headline on the front page.
The Lancet authors state that 92 percent of the death claims were backed up by death certificates. That sounds impressive until you realize that it only takes a small amount of fudging to jump the numbers by half a million - if 200 deaths are bogus, that adds 500,000 to the count when it is extrapolated.
Yes, but the initial 92 percent of "accurate" deaths are equally extrapolated, making the total overcount 8 percent in your circumstance.
Are you sure?
Science--has not existed for decades. Pseudo-science a religion, an act of faith, practiced on an altar of hating everything about everybody and everybody about everything; this is what passes for science today.
Brainwashed graduate students hoping to pimp a grant that proves humanity is doomed unless the elite and enlightened left manage to dupe the flyover states into a nanny state program where the vanguard heroes of social progress are allowed to nuance a utopian (French) PC future for the benefit of the brain dead, patriotic, unwashed, who still, inexplicably, maintain their own moral compass.
The Lancet insults birdcages and dead fish.
ping for later
bttt
Once again, all it takes is a ten percent overcount to cook the books.
Many trust Lancet to be the highest standard. But, maybe it isn't anymore. Is this a one-time accident that got past the editors?
A terrorist is a civilian, by definition. He's not in a recognised military organization, does not wear a uniform, or carry arms openly. Therefore he is civilian
This is the third time they've published phony studies grossly inflating deaths in Iraq due to Western actions.
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