Tim Lambert (deltoidblog AT gmail.com) is a computer scientist at the University of New South Wales.
John Tirman comments on Neil Munro's misconduct:
One quick note about the Soros bugaboo. I commissioned L2. It was commissioned in Oct 2005, with internal funds from the Center for International Studies at MIT, of which I am executive director. The funds for public education (not the survey itself) came from the Open Society Institute in the following spring, long after things had started. Burnham did not know this (Roberts was not much involved at this point.) MIT was providing funds, that's all he knew or needed to know. There were other small donors involved too. I told this to Munro on the telephone and in an email. He nonetheless implied that Soros money had funded the survey from the start, possibly at Soros' behest. That is a disgraceful lie, and Munro knows it.
This timing also underscores another Munro falsehood: the attempt to influence 2006 congressional elections. We began in Oct 05 with the intention of getting the survey done in winter and results out in spring. The violence was so severe that the survey could not be conducted until late spring, and then at great peril. About two months for data entry, analysis, writing, peer review, etc. We decided to delay the release if too close to the election, setting our own deadline of Oct 14. It was never intended to influence the congressional election, though there is certainly nothing wrong in a democracy with wanting the public informed.
Munro also knew this and fabricated a tale to make this sound like a political gambit from the start. These are just two aspects that I know first hand. Munro's behavior--screaming at me on the telephone, demanding to know if any donors were Muslims, etc.---signalled his intentions from the start. This is a bad actor and is a disgrace to the newsletter where the diatribe appeared.
The NEJM article is far more important and interesting. This is where debate should be focused, not a blatant hatchet job by a guilty malcontent and one "source."
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Comments
I responded to these comments in the original thread. Short version: Roberts did try to "influence" the election, both in 2004 and 2006. Don't believe me? See the citations, including reporting by AP's Paul Hoy.
Not there is anything wrong with trying to influence elections!
Posted by: David Kane | January 11, 2008 11:10 PM
So far as I can see, there is nothing in the comment David Kane has just linked to, nor elsewhere in that comment thread, that either states that Roberts tried to influence any election or gives evidence that he did.
Posted by: g | January 11, 2008 11:16 PM
Whoops! My mistake. I linked to the wrong Deltoid comment. I should have linked here. Sorry. Key quote is from AP reporter Paul Hoy.
And then there was this gem from L1.
Now, admittedly, this one is not as clear cut. Perhaps Roberts wanted a "public response" that did not involve voting of any kind, even though L1 came out a few days before the 2004 elections. Could be! I believe that there is another better quote from the AP story in 2004, but I can't find the link just now.
Posted by: David Kane | January 11, 2008 11:28 PM
David, your second quote makes it clear that they didn't intend to influence the elections. To "have no delusions" about A is to not believe A. As in "I have no delusions that David Kane can calculate a CMR".
Your first quote shows how incredibly stubborn you are. Mr. Tirman has given a clear instance of a journalist misrepresenting Roberts. Your response is to stick with your original claim about Roberts, by quoting a journalist.
So here we have one verbatim quote from Roberts saying he couldn't affect the elections; we have Tirman saying they didn't intend to affect the elections; and you quote a journalist who doesn't quote Roberts verbatim, but describes what "he acknowledged." Particularly amusing given that the journalist in question claims Roberts published "two surveys of mortality" "last October". Which doesn't seem accurate, since his two surveys were published 2 years apart.
And at the time this is what you said:
Posted by: SG | January 12, 2008 1:17 AM
Interesting, Soros said that removing Bush from office was "a matter of life and death" and Tirman is author of the book "100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World". And the gullible public is expected to believe they were simply conducting an unbiased mortality survey? Give us all a break.
Tirman toots his own horn on his website, stating his study is the "most reliable study of Iraq mortality". He doesn't say why his study is the most reliable, just that it is because he said so. So there, take that, case closed.
I remain unconvinced that Tirman's ideology and his association with Soros didn't taint the survey and its methodology. And newer surveys, done by more reputable organizations, appear to confirm the grossly inflated numbers in Tirman's study.
Posted by: Charles H. | January 12, 2008 3:08 AM
^ S/B " . . . appear to confirm that the numbers in Tirman's study were grossly inflated."
Posted by: Charles H. | January 12, 2008 3:14 AM
When I first read David's conclusion above regarding that statement, I was amazed. Not the first time. It is clear that Roberts was under no delusion that the survey results would have any impact on the election whatsoever.
Charles H logic:
Survey is commissioned, work begins.
Later, a foundation supported by Soros gives additional funding.
"Soros commissioned the survey".
Posted by: dhogaza | January 12, 2008 3:38 AM
"Perhaps Roberts wanted a "public response" that did not involve voting of any kind..."
I can't remember where it was he said it but Roberts said that was exactly the case. Specifically, he said that drawing attention to the high casualty rate from US bombing might encourage one or both candidates to commit to review policy in Iraq.
Posted by: Ian Gould | January 12, 2008 3:56 AM
I have to laugh aloud when I read comments here suggesting that the Lancet studies were aimed at influencing the US presidential and mid-term elections. I've said if all before but David Kane and others must really believe they live in a helathy, functioning democracy in which there are real political divisions between the two main parties. If Kerry had won, what would have changed in terms of foreign policy? Nix. Nil. Nooit. If this is possible, Kerry, who voted in support of the imperial aggression in the first place (along with just about every other Democrat) was one of those claiming that 'mistakes had been made in waging the war', not that the war was a criminal enterprise. He had apparently supported sending even more troops in to Iraq at a time that Rumsfeld and the chicken hawks in the current Bush-Cheney junta were reluctant to do so (I suppose that they were convinced that outsourcing the conflict to private mercenary armies on public funds was just as effective).
Kerry also stated that he did not support universal government health care in the US because it was not have "political support". What did he mean by that? Poll after poll in America generally show that 70% or more of the population support the idea of government-funded health care for everyone. What Kerry meant by 'political support' was that the private insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations were opposed to it. That's 'political support' in the US. If the corporate elite don't like it, then it ain't gonna happen. The truth is that the general population in the US is so far to the left of its two main parties that it is almost impossible to connect the two. This is 'democracy', US style - in reality, a corporatocracy.
David also says that there isn't necessarily anything wrong in influencing elections. Isn't there? Perhaps this explains why big, vested interersts supply billions of dollars in campaign contributions to candidates in both parties, to ensure that whichever candidate wins, they 'speak for them'. This also ignores the huge amounts of money well-funded lobbying groups spend to influence government policy in the US. In 1998, the agro-biotech lobby alone spent 1.29 billion dollars lobbying politicians in Congress. Oil and gas interests spent 58 million dollars the same year in lobbying. The same year all NGOs - across a broad spectrum of areas - mustered a measly 4.5 million dollars for lobbying purposes. To reiterate, this ignores the vaster sums spent funding election campaigns.
Some democracy.
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | January 12, 2008 6:04 AM
David, I notice you didn't ref. your own "analysis" of the Lancet study in the NJ article. Why is that?
Posted by: bigcitylib | January 12, 2008 6:22 AM
A few more reactions: First, "Soros" had nothing to do with any of this. The charitable foundation he created, Open Society Institute (OSI), gave a grant to MIT's Center for International Studies to partially fund the public education effort on this issue. The grant came in the spring of 2006, many months after I commissioned the second study (L2) by engaging Roberts and Burnham. (Roberts immediately passed the baton to Burnham.) OSI had no influence over the origination, conduct, or findings of the survey. Burnham, Roberts, Lafta, et al had no knowledge of the sources of funding, only that MIT was providing the money.
Second, this was not my survey. It was conducted by, analyzed by, and/or written up by the authors of the Lancet article. I commissioned the survey and consulted on matters only of the public education effort.
Third, people are allowed to have political opinions, believe in God, etc., and still do science. That said, Roberts was not involved in L2 until the analytical phase in late summer, because he was interested in running for Congress (btw, don't we want more scientists in public life?). Which brings us to Hoy's misstatements, and
Fourth, on the elections and timing. It was as I stated. We started in Oct 05. We intended to get it done as quickly as possible and still do a professional job. The delays were due mainly to the violence itself. Was it my intention to inform and maybe even cause a stir among the American public? Yes, of course. That the timing took place as it did, and the study was released three weeks before the election, was actually unfortunate, because those who want to bury the findings---who simply cannot come to grips with the blooshed and US culpability---would dismiss it as "political." This was done at the time and continues to fester. I would much have preferred to have the study done and ready for the public the previous spring.
The persistent claim that Roberts tried to influence the '06 election is purely false (and maliciously so). He was not involved until the drafting of the Lancet piece, and the timing was by then "set" by the circumstances of when the survey could be conducted.
Fifth, I do judge the Burnham et al study to be the most reliable calculation of mortality. As I said in yesterday's post, the new survey published in NEJM is interesting and important. (Their mortality figures are quite high, by the way, but their calculations of death by violence lower as a proprotion than L2---there is much to explore on this.) What L2 and NEJM both signal is how difficult it is to do such surveys, but both confirm an exceptionally high number of Iraqis have died as a consequence of the war (whether by violence or other means). Recalling that these surveys were completed 19 months ago, the numbers now must be truly staggering, as the ORB survey indicates. There will be method issues with all, given the circumstances. But, contrary to the unreliable IBC counts, these surveys indicate an exceptionally gruesome level of unnecessary death, which track consistently with 4.5 million displaced, extraordinary numbers of widows, and so forth. The science debate should focus on the human cost and how to calculate it. The policy debate should focus on how to prevent such catastrophes from occurring again.
Posted by: John Tirman | January 12, 2008 10:52 AM
I appreciate John Tirman taking the time to clarify these issues for us, and I agree that the Soros stuff is a red herring. However, it sure would be nice too get some clarity in certain topics:
1) You claim that Hoy is guilty of "misstatements." How do you know? Has Hoy admitted making a mistake? Has Roberts denied that he "acknowledged that the timing was meant to influence midterm U.S. elections." Since you were not present (I assume) when Roberts was talking to Hoy, you don't know what Roberts did or did not acknowledge. (Neither do I.)
2) You write "We intended to get it done as quickly as possible and still do a professional job." Excellent. I can understand delays in data gathering. But why, if you were trying to get it done as quickly as possible, did it take 3 months to go from survey end to publication while it only took 3 weeks for L1? Perhaps you could give more details on the timeline. For example, when did you submit the article to the Lancet?
3) If it was "actually unfortunate" that the study came out in October rather than after the elections, why didn't you ask the Lancet to delay publication? I am sure that they would have, at your request. Of course, if your goal is to "cause a stir among the American public," then obviously, the weeks before an election are the best time to do so.
4) When we had breakfast two years ago, you said that you would push for the data to be made public. In fact, you indicated that MIT probably owned the data. What is the status of that? Do you agree with the decision to refuse to share the data with people like Spagat? Is that consistent with MIT's policies on data-sharing?
Posted by: David Kane | January 12, 2008 12:49 PM
Why are you hectoring people with uninteresting questions?
Posted by: ali baba | January 12, 2008 1:00 PM
Was this before or after you publicly accused the study of being fraudulent?
Posted by: dhogaza | January 12, 2008 1:43 PM
Despicable frauds like Kane have a limited set of purposes - one is testing the waters for new neo-fascist talking points, another is muddying the waters of public discourse with already tested lies, and yet another is trolling - hoping they can get respectable researchers to respond, preferably lose their tempers and respond with something they can abstract to their neo-fascist paramedia allies. But any response at all to them directly, as opposed to listing and debunking the collective points of the right-wing denialist community on an issue, serves these goals.
Denialism is a template now - the same machine serves for Iraqi casualties, evolutionary biology, climate science, public health, etc.
Posted by: Marion Delgado | January 12, 2008 2:03 PM
ali baba asks: "Why are you [Kane] hectoring people with uninteresting questions?"
Sure beats answering the legitimate questions about his own behavior and statements, like this one for example:
A tried and true debating technique at which Ivy leaguers excel: instead of answering a question, simply pose another (preferably tangentially related) one.
Posted by: JB | January 12, 2008 2:33 PM
Tim,
With your help, we have gotten to the bottom of one empirical mystery: Age data was not collected from the households in L2. Could you help us with another? Did Les Roberts "acknowledged that the timing was meant to influence midterm U.S. elections?" If you could ask Les whether or not Hoy's reporting is accurate --- I was there and I now think that it was --- we can add this to the list of empirical debates we can put to rest.
Posted by: David Kane | January 12, 2008 2:52 PM
For Mr. Kane: You had breakfast, and I had coffee. Please don't misrepresent my eating habits. I do now realize that you were misrepresenting your intentions. Re Hoy: Roberts did not time L2 to coincide with the elections, period. He had no opportunity to do so, period. Hence, Hoy I expect misquoted. Re time to press: I was not involved in analysis or writing, so I can't say. Getting it into print in 3 months seems fairly quick. I can't speak to L1. Re October release: It was a tough call regarding the release, or to hold it. We thought 3 weeks was okay. It was released when ready, which seems appropriate. Re data release: I think Burnham and JHSPH has handled the release of data appropriately. We have no reason to believe anything unethical has occurred.
Posted by: John Tirman | January 12, 2008 2:53 PM
What Mr. Kane has to say about himself on his "Lancet on Iraqi Mortality" blog:
I realise that research needs to be robust enough to stand up to hostile questioning; but shouldn't that hostile questioning be by someone who is capable of dealing with evidence as honestly as he is so vociferous about others needing to be? Given that Kane has stated, on the basis of not liking the numbers, that the authors of the Lancet study committed deliberate fraud; given that he has failed to acknowledge any point made about the plausibility of the high response rate; given that he has failed to acknowledge that there is consistent evidence that at least 3/4 of the "basic" demographic data was collected in L1 and L2 (I have to look into this more, myself); and given that he is so busy trying to force everyone else to apologise that he has no time to spare for acknowledge any possible error on his part, I cannot see how Kane has any credibility in this respect. Isn't this kind of like asking McIntyre to host a panel reviewing Mann?
Posted by: Luna_the_cat | January 12, 2008 3:07 PM
David Kane: "Did Les Roberts "acknowledged that the timing was meant to influence midterm U.S. elections?" If you could ask Les whether or not Hoy's reporting is accurate --- I was there and I now think that it was --- we can add this to the list of empirical debates we can put to rest."
Why is that an interesting question? Does it change anything at all about the study?
Posted by: dalazal | January 12, 2008 3:10 PM
I appreciate John Tirman's answers but they still sound too self-serving to be believable.
""Fifth, I do judge the Burnham et al study to be the most reliable calculation of mortality.""
Of course, your opinion is the most important. But you are not a disinterested nor objective participant. The study met your agenda, so naturally you support it. And all too conveniently, the study met met Soros's objectives also.
""Recalling that these surveys were completed 19 months ago, the numbers now must be truly staggering, as the ORB survey indicates.""
The ORB survey? The results of that opinion poll appear even more preposterous then the study you commissioned.
As I posted on a previous thread, someone could throw out the figure 50,000,000 dead in Iraq and there would be posters vigorously defending it here.
Posted by: Charles H. | January 12, 2008 3:30 PM
Actually, he spent an immense amount of time defending a claim that the response rate ALONE was indicative of fraud.
Yet as pointed out above, no such reaction to the NEJM response rate.
Why not? Kane fairly gushes over the NEJM paper. Because of the methodology? Because of the number?
No, because he thinks they're attacking L2 directly and supporting his claim that L2 was a fraud.
That seems quite clear from his post on his own blog.
Posted by: dhogaza | January 12, 2008 3:45 PM
I apologize to John Tirman for mischaracterizing his eating habits. He did, indeed, have coffee.
Also, I can second the professionalism with which Gilbert Burnham (and Shannon Doocy) have conducted themselves throughout the debate.
Posted by: David Kane | January 12, 2008 3:58 PM
It would've been more useful if you'd conducted yourself professionally and honorably from the beginning.
Not that there's any evidence you're doing so now.
And, interestingly, you don't praise John Tirman for his professionalism.
Posted by: dhogaza | January 12, 2008 4:08 PM
Also, I can second the professionalism with which Gilbert Burnham (and Shannon Doocy) have conducted themselves throughout the debate.
none of us fails to notice the truly professional way in which you enjoy having been right on the unimportant point of data collection.
Posted by: sod | January 12, 2008 5:50 PM
"we can add this to the list of empirical debates we can put to rest."
In your mind, perhaps.
But that's all that matters, right?
Posted by: JB | January 12, 2008 8:05 PM
John Tirman's last direct contact with me was a request that I not e-mail him anymore. That is not the way that professionals behave.
Posted by: David Kane | January 12, 2008 8:11 PM
Counterpoint: yes it is.
Posted by: dsquared | January 12, 2008 8:35 PM
Regarding the time to publications, according to David Kane it is 3 weeks for L1 and 2 months for L2. Assuming this is true (I can't be bothered checking), David Kane seems to be implying something underhand about L1 here. Or he could be implying that L2 had big problems because it took so long, where in fact 3 months is pretty normal for an epidemiology paper. I would suspect that the difference in timing occurred because the first paper, being novel and about a very important issue, was fast-tracked. Most medical journals have a fast-tracking system for articles about issues considered topical, and I believe I may have tried to use such a fast-tracking system myself in one instance (unsuccessfully, from memory). Regardless of the political affiliations of the authors, an article about deaths in Iraq is topical during an election for the country that invaded Iraq, and likely to be fast tracked.
That is my guess for the different times.
Posted by: SG | January 12, 2008 9:02 PM
DK: "John Tirman's last direct contact with me was a request that I not e-mail him anymore."
Does this happen to you a lot?
Posted by: Tim Lambert | January 12, 2008 9:10 PM
No. Perhaps I would be better off if it did! I have managed to exchange dozens of e-mails with Shannon Doocy and Gilbert Burnham with no problems whatsoever. I was every bit as professional and polite with Tirman as I was with them. (Or I have been with Tim and dsquared.) In fact, I think that I only exchanged a couple of e-mails with Tirman, beyond the bookkeeping of setting up our breakfast, before he told me not to e-mail him again. But, alas, I don't think that Tirman is used to communicating with scholars who question his assumptions.
The only other example was Les Roberts instructing me, not just to stop e-mailing him, but to stop e-mailing any of the Lancet authors. That was funny! With his permission, I would be happy to reprint his e-mail here. Perhaps Tim could ask him.
Posted by: David Kane | January 12, 2008 9:32 PM
Kane, given that the total excess deaths in this new IFHS study is 400,000, assuming the under-reporting works on non-violent deaths as in violent deaths, how do you reconcile your claim that IFHS demolishes L2 against this from L2:
The two studies actually agree in the total excess deaths, don't they?
Posted by: SG | January 12, 2008 10:57 PM
David Kane:
You know something about how professionals behave? You could have fooled me.
Kane continues:
Then again, perhaps he is not used to communicating with people who label studies he commissions "frauds" based on little more than their incredulity at response rates.
Or perhaps Tirman just could not be bothered by people who do not know how to calculate CMR's.
Posted by: JB | January 13, 2008 12:55 AM
SG,
The two studies actually agree in the total excess deaths, don't they?
Sure they do. If you ignore the fact that the IFHS study gives no estimate of total excess deaths, and then make up a number of total excess deaths from the study's crude death rates, ignoring the fact that you have no idea of the methodology the authors used to derive their own count of violent deaths from the totality of their data and adjustments, and if you then almost double that made-up number, and if you then attribute that second made-up number to the IFHS study, you're right, the two studies agree!
Brilliant.
The increasingly absurd efforts of those desperate to salvage the Lancet study are painful to watch.
Posted by: Jason | January 13, 2008 1:42 AM
The arithmetic is simple, and doesn't involve "making up" numbers. The total rate, and the subset of that rate which represent violent deaths, are both given. The arithmetic that extrapolates the subset rate to a fixed number for the period in time works equally well for the total rate.
Now you're just making shit up. No doubling of that number is necessary, and indeed people have been (correctly) subtracting out the author's estimate of the death rate before the shit hit the fan.
Now you can argue about the error bars that we ought to assign to the number that's been arithmetically computed from the information given in their paper.
And, if you want, you can argue that their survey gives accurate results for the violent death rate, but not the total death rate. That would be fun. I would enjoy seeing that.
You are going to have to do better than to make up rules that say that if we have two rates, then it's OK to multiply R1 by a factor to get a total death number, but not OK to multiply R2 by the same factor, when both rates are generated by exactly the same set of questionnaires.
Posted by: dhogaza | January 13, 2008 3:34 AM
Oh, and no one is presenting the calculations done on the data in the NEJM paper as being rigorous. It's a back of the envelope affair.
Apparently it's OK for David Kane to do such bank of the envelope scribblings to support his claims that Les Roberts et al are guilty of scientific misconduct (have presented fraudulent data, one of the biggest frauds ever, according to Kane) but when anyone does such scribbling in a way that lends credibility to the Lancet work, it's cheating.
Posted by: dhogaza | January 13, 2008 3:37 AM
yes Jason, in my imagination I multiplied one number in the paper by another.
Or did you think that perhaps the number in the column labelled "total" of table 4 was calculated on the back of an envelope, but the number in the column labelled "violent" wasn't?
Brilliant.
Posted by: SG | January 13, 2008 3:48 AM
then make up a number of total excess deaths from the study's crude death rates.
the increase of both death rates is discussed in the paper. if you don t like the "excess number of deth" calcualtions, simply stick to the rates.
ignoring the fact that you have no idea of the methodology the authors used to derive their own count of violent deaths from the totality of their data and adjustments,
the methodology is described rather well. the Anbar adjustment can t be done, as it relies on the IBC numbers which do not provide any informations about non-violent death. so this part is an estimate based on the calculations in the paper. if you disagree, feel free to do some calculations of your own.
if you then almost double that made-up number
enlighten us. when and where does this step happen? apart from in your mind?
Posted by: sod | January 13, 2008 3:54 AM
The problem with the Lancet study is almost no one believes it. It was a shocking number injected into the middle of an election campaign, but one that few in the general public found or find credible.
Having been misled about the rationale for the Iraq war, the general public is in no mood to swallow, without question, a mortality study with the political odor attached to it like Tirman's study is.
Posted by: Charles H. | January 13, 2008 3:57 AM
The problem with the Lancet study is almost no one believes it.
nice assumptions. so you walked the streets, polling people? asking them whether the Lancet number or the president Bush number was to be believed?
you ve done a detailed study about the amount on information people collected about the study? you factored in the amount of misrepresentation about the Lancet paper in the mass media? false informations spread about the paper by the like of David Kane?
Posted by: sod | January 13, 2008 4:09 AM
"The problem with the Lancet study is almost no one believes it".
Charles, you should qualify that. Of course, those in power know the truth but they suppress it. The media, acting as the usual echo chamber, parrot that line. If 'no one believes it', its because of the well cultivated myth of the 'basic benevolence' of western countries, the notion that our governments uniformly support human rights, freedom and democracy. The volumes of evidence to the contrary are buried, forever sent down the memory hole, as if they never happened. This explains why 'no one believes it'. It also explains why many people in the US think that the death toll of civilians in Viet Nam from US bombardment was a fraction of the actual total. Why many don't understand the meaning of Richard Nixon's infamous 'Anything that flies on anything that moves' order to Kissinger for mass bombing of Cambodia in 1969. Why the 1901-02 slaughter by American forces of Phillipinos as the US wrestled control pf the Phillippines from Spain doesn't register either. There are 'worthy' genocides and 'unworthy' genocides. Those carried out directly by the west or its proxies are 'unworthy', and are downplayed or ignored. Those carried out by non-aligned natiuons or officially designated enemies are highlighted and given extensive coverage in the western media.
There are plenty examples of both, if you bother to look.
Posted by: Jeff Harvey | January 13, 2008 5:29 AM
What is this, the fifth thread in a row about the Lancet study? Can we have a thread about something else now, please?
Posted by: Barton Paul Levenson | January 13, 2008 6:51 AM
Hmmm ... this issue is significant, not only the subject matter, but the fact that David Kane is a fairly prominent individual who is publicly accusing Les Roberts et al of what amounts to scientific misconduct and fraud.
He's doing his best, with the help of the right wing blogosphere and press, to ruin the man's reputation.
And he intends to continue, chairing a session on the studies next August at a stats conference, if I read his blog correctly.
Posted by: dhogaza | January 13, 2008 7:41 AM
Jeff, there you go again injecting facts and reason into the discussion.
What MC is saying is that the majority of Americans want to believe in the benevolence and wisdom of their government and don't care what a few egg-heads have to say about dead towel-heads.
Fox News says the surgw is succeeding and that's all that matters, isn;t it?
Posted by: Ian Gould | January 13, 2008 8:27 AM
It would be useful, after the next US election, if the new administration was to request such a mortality survey, as part of decision-making about what to do next. Of course, some would see it as political, but deliberate ignorance is no less political.
Posted by: stewart | January 13, 2008 10:26 AM
"What is this, the fifth thread in a row about the Lancet study? Can we have a thread about something else now, please?"
I find it interesting when "Born again Christians" like Levenson don't like to talk about the death of thousands of people (many of them undoubtedly innocent civilians) due to policies of their own government.
Very interesting indeed.
That's one of the reasons I
Posted by: JB | January 13, 2008 10:53 AM
"The problem with the Lancet study is almost no one believes it."
That's because Americans don't want to believe it -- not because they are skeptical (what a laugh) of the methodology of the study or anything like that.
They don't want to believe it because doing so would destroy their view of themselves as good "Christians," requiring them to acknowledge that they are at least partly responsible for the death of thousands of people.
After all, they -- we (because I am an American too) -- continue to elect the people who carry out the carnage.
I did not vote for Bush but I have voted for Democrats who voted for the war originally and who have done nothing since to stop the carnage in Iraq.
Posted by: JB | January 13, 2008 11:04 AM
You know, what Kane is doing is gaining publicity for himself, so our choices are to ignore him, or google bomb him, associate some phrase such as "disgracefully incompetent David Kane" with his name so that when his mom googles him she learns what sonny boy has been up to. Suggestions?
Posted by: Eli Rabett | January 13, 2008 12:26 PM
SG,
Or did you think that perhaps the number in the column labelled "total" of table 4
There is no column labelled "total" in table 4.
Posted by: Jason | January 13, 2008 1:07 PM
dhogaza,
The arithmetic is simple, and doesn't involve "making up" numbers.
SG's number for "total excess deaths" is entirely made up. The authors of the study provide no such number.
The total rate, and the subset of that rate which represent violent deaths, are both given.
No, the study gives "crude death rates" for violent and all-causes deaths. It does not explain the details of the methodology by which it produced the figure of 151,000 total violent deaths. It does state that the methodology involves adjustments for sampling errors, underreporting and population changes. Since SG doesn't know the details of this methodology, he has absolutely no idea of how to produce a number for total excess deaths using the crude all-causes death rates. He's just making shit up. He's lying.
Now you're just making shit up. No doubling of that number is necessary,
No, you're just making shit up. The number of total excess deaths SG fabricated and falsely attributed to IFHS is 400,000. Even that made-up number must be almost doubled to match the estimate of total excess deaths in Lancet.
Posted by: Jason | January 13, 2008 1:23 PM
It's computed. Computation isn't "making things up" unless you think that claiming 2+2=4 is "making up" the number 4.
But if you want to say really stupid things in public, we can't stop you.
Posted by: dhogaza | January 13, 2008 2:01 PM
Elis said: "what Kane is doing is gaining publicity for himself, so our choices are to ignore him, or google bomb him, associate some phrase such as "disgracefully incompetent David Kane"
Kane seems to be digging his own hole quite nicely.
I don't think he needs anyone's help.
The fact that Tirman requested Kane not e-mail him any more is just one indication of this.
Sometimes the things that happen quietly in the background without public fanfare are the things that have the most impact.
Just ask Lubos Motl.
Posted by: JB | January 13, 2008 2:14 PM
It's computed. Computation isn't "making things up"
SG substituted a crude computation of his own devising for the complex methodology used by the authors of the IFHS study, then attributed the number produced by his made-up computation to the study, then almost doubled that number to try and argue that the IFHS study "agrees" with Lancet on total excess deaths. That is most definitely making things up. It's laughable.
Posted by: Jason | January 13, 2008 2:22 PM
The algebra's entirely straightforward and no "devising" is necessary. violent death rate * population * time interval is how they got their total deaths due to violence. (total death rate - violent death rate - background rate) * population * time is how SG got his number (as have several others here and elsewhere. The only unknown value is the excess death rate.
You're essentially arguing "their total death rate is garbage". If you really want to argue that, feel free.
Posted by: dhogaza | January 13, 2008 3:11 PM
SG substituted a crude computation of his own devising for the complex methodology used by the authors of the IFHS study,
what complex methodology? they failed to visit certain clusters and try to fix it via the IBC numbers.
BUT the paper still includes a mortality rate for non-violent causes. and unless the inability to make death rate calculations is contagious, everyone can calculate how many iraqis died from non-violent cause DIRECTLY from the numbers given in the paper!
then attributed the number produced by his made-up computation to the study,
you might want to discuss this accusation in more detail with David Kane, who constantly simply uses his calculation of the L1 numbers to compare it to this study.
let us compare the two cases:
the IFHS study includes a death rate, but does not include the simple calculation for a number of dead.
the L1 paper makes a DETAILED ARGUMENT, why it excludes the falluja numbers from some calculations.
then almost doubled that number to try and argue that the IFHS study "agrees" with Lancet on total excess deaths.
you might want to google what a CONFIDENCE INTERVAL is. then you might notice, that two studies do not need to give the exactly same result, to confirm each other.
It's laughable.
yes, you are making quite a joke out of yourself here.
Posted by: sod | January 13, 2008 3:13 PM
Actually, I was thinking he might want to google what a MULTIPLICATION TABLE is. They still teach kids how to use them, right?
Posted by: dhogaza | January 13, 2008 3:23 PM
sod,
what complex methodology?
The complex methodology of "simulations that took into account survey sampling errors and estimated probable uncertainty in the adjustment factors for missing clusters, in the level of underreporting, and in projected population figures."
BUT the paper still includes a mortality rate for non-violent causes. and unless the inability to make death rate calculations is contagious, everyone can calculate how many iraqis died from non-violent cause DIRECTLY from the numbers given in the paper!
Utter nonsense. The study provides only crude death rates and does not describe the details of the complex methodology by which it produced its estimate of 151,000 total violent deaths from the crude death rates and all the other data that went into the authors' calculations.
you might want to google what a CONFIDENCE INTERVAL is.
You might want to google what "nonsequitur" is.
yes, you are making quite a joke out of yourself here.
You have revealed yourself as a complete joke.
Posted by: Jason | January 13, 2008 3:37 PM
dhogaza,
The algebra's entirely straightforward and no "devising" is necessary. violent death rate * population * time interval is how they got their total deaths due to violence.
More nonsense. The authors clearly state that they produced their estimate of total violent deaths "on the basis of simulations that took into account survey sampling errors and estimated probable uncertainty in the adjustment factors for missing clusters, in the level of underreporting, and in projected population figures." They give no estimate of excess violent deaths, and no estimates of either total or excess all-causes deaths.
SG made up a number, then falsely attributed that fabricated number to the IFHS study, then almost doubled that fabricated, falsely-attributed number to assert that the IFHS study "agrees" with L2 on total excess deaths. It's a joke. He's a joke. And you're a joke for trying to defend his nonsense.
Posted by: Jason | January 13, 2008 3:46 PM
However they give a CALCULATED figure for total death rate, WITH CONFIDENCE INTERVALS (which means they did basic stats analysis on it).
So essentially you're arguing this figure is crap. As I invited you to do. Thank you!
Now, if this figure is crap, why aren't the others.
(I don't believe any of the rates are crap, but since you're arguing that at least one of their published rates is crap, I must ask my question). Please tell us why their published total death rate is crap in some detail.
If rate * time interval * population is no good, then the rate figure they give is garbage. So, again, is this your argument? That the total death rate they give is garbage, despite their providing error bars?
Posted by: dhogaza | January 13, 2008 3:55 PM
dhogaza,
However they give a CALCULATED figure for total death rate
They provide estimates of various crude death rates. You cannot produce an estimate of total excess deaths from those crude death rates because YOU DON'T KNOW the complex methodology they used to produce their estimate of total violent deaths. Stop pretending that you do.
What's even more idiotic is the hilarious notion that 400,000 is about the same as 655,000.
Posted by: Jason | January 13, 2008 4:10 PM
They did this, of course, to increase the accuracy of their final figure.
However, if they'd extrapolated from their violent death rate directly the result wouldn't be MEANINGLESS, as you are trying to argue.
Only less accurate.
The only way that using the rate directly to extrapolate a final figure would be if the rate itself were garbage, if population estimates were garbage, if the time interval were garbage, etc.