The content on this webpage contains paid/affiliate links. When you click on any of our affiliate link, we/I may get a small compensation at no cost to you. See our affiliate disclosure for more info -----------------------
Last updated on June 15th, 2017 at 01:32 pm
Last July, cynical Phillip Adams questioned the number of Iraqi deaths attributed to Saddam Hussein. “Where are the bodies of evidence?” he asked. Interestingly, Adams didn’t ask the same question over Lancet estimates that up to 100,000 Iraqis had died following the US-led liberation of Iraq:
No longer embarrassed by 100,000 dead civilians, the collateral damage will be unconstrained, as George W. Bush, no more Mr Nice Guy, celebrates his second honeymoon by making missiles rain from the heavens like confetti.
That’s our Phil, as informed as ever. One important difference between claims against Saddam (which Adams doubts) and the Lancet claims (which Phil believes) is that, in the case of the former, there actually are thousands of bodies. And more keep turning up:
Investigators have discovered several mass graves in southern Iraq that are believed to contain the bodies of people killed by Saddam Hussein’s government, including one estimated to hold 5,000 bodies, Iraqi officials say.
The graves, discovered over the past three months, have not yet been dug up because of the risks posed by the continuing insurgency and the lack of qualified forensic workers, said Bakhtiar Amin, Iraq’s interim human rights minister. But initial excavations have substantiated the accounts of witnesses to a number of massacres. If the estimated body counts prove correct, the new graves would be among the largest in the grim tally of mass killings that have gradually come to light since the fall of Mr. Hussein’s government two years ago. At least 290 grave sites containing the remains of some 300,000 people have been found since the American invasion two years ago, Iraqi officials say.
Enough bodies for you, Phil? Time for a retraction, maybe?
(Via LGF)
UPDATE. Earlier mass-grave reports from Arthur Chrenkoff.
- What bodies? Where? La La La…Posted by richard mcenroe on 04/17 at 06:33 PM • #
- I thought I was kidding. I went to Cherenkoff’s site and that’s exactly the tone of the lefty posters there.
You really can’t parody these people.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 04/17 at 06:45 PM • #
- Look, you could show the lefties a mountain of bodies piled 100 yards high and it wouldn’t mean a thing to them. Not a thing.
Tutsis. Not a care.
Congolese. Not a care.
Darfurese. Not a care.
Bosnians. Not a care.
Cubans. Not a care.
Israelis. Not a care.
North Koreans. Not a care.
Afghans. Not a care.
Iraqis. Not a care.It’s not the death of a human being that means something to the left. It’s moral superiority. How can a left liberal feel morally superior by protesting in front of the UN about the calamity happening in Zimbabwe. Who would care?
But find a house in Baghdad with a family of four who were tragically killed by a stray bomb (often fired carelessly by the insurgents), that’s an opportunity to take a stand and feel morally superior. Because it involves the US.
Posted by wronwright on 04/17 at 07:11 PM • #
- Bet they are all waiting for you, Phil the deny-er.Meanwhile back at A.M. the Feds are being berated on their plans for an environmental coup- a freight railway linking Melbourne and Brisbane”If it’s such a good idea WHY hasn’t it been done before?” and” It’ll make a big HOLE in the Flinders Ranges!”
- If you want some photos to send to Philco or any other moonbat, here’s a selection.Posted by richard mcenroe on 04/17 at 07:40 PM • #
- Sorry Guys but your really expecting too much from Phil, from reading todays Phils Phollies it seems that Phil has his hands full on other, more pressing matters.
“I’ve been watching the endless catwalk on Foxtel’s Fashion Channel”
But dont worry – ANZAC day is coming up and I’m sure Phil and his co-horts will be busy cutting and pasting bile from last year (and the many years before that), to spew on the graves of 19 yo’s who died for our country 90 years ago.
Posted by BattlestarGallactica on 04/17 at 07:42 PM • #
- The left is concerned with the process of suffering not those caught in the process. The latter would force them to embrace reality and that is a price just too high to pay. Much better to blame boogeymen rather than roll the sleves up and get in there. That would force them to ask serious questions about some of their sacred cows. Not going to happen.
- It’s all a lie. Chimpy War McHallibushitler planted those bodies. Smuggled in a turkey.
Just like he planted the WMDs. As Phab Phil predicted.
Posted by underscore on 04/17 at 08:44 PM • #
- The subject of mass graves is sidestepped by leftist publications unless of course they can spin some American involvement
What’s the odd that these latest findings will not even be mentioned by the BBC?
Or if mentioned will be accompanied by the obligatory chaser “It is reported that up to 100,000 may have died as the result of the …”
Since Paht boy only reads leftist pubs itis evident that he considered these finding to be rightist’s hearsay
- The House of Wheels states that
The 100,000 figure has been comprehensively proven wrong, since it’s based on a cluster survey and there’s no evidence for it.
The Lancet study’s head line figure of 100,000 was slightly misreported in the press but is essentially sound. It passed peer review and I am unaware of scientific authorities that have made signficiant criticisms of it. Can any commenters point to such credible critiques? (Hint: Andrew Bolt, Fred Kaplan and Michael Fumento do not make the scientific cut in this case.)
Tim Lambert, a scientist alright, has written more than forty posts systematicly refuting each and every internet-based criticism made of the study. Virtually all of the criticisms of Lancet have come from right wing ideologists. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with right wing ideology per se, but it is not a useful basis for scientific philosophy in this case.
Can any commenter or blogger provide an epistemological critique of cluster surveying in general, or a methodological critique of the Lancet survey in particular? If so they should be writing their social science prize-winning grant applications.
In reality the cluster survey method will tend to understate casualties. This is especially true of the Lancet study which exclude outliers like the massive Fallujah casualty cluster.
The fact that official casualty registration agencies, like morgues and hostpitals, have reported lower casualties is due to the passive nature of these accounting agencies. Alot of Iraqi people, especially those living in primitive tribal jurisdictions, do not report vital statistics to central authority.
Also, the enormous destructive power of the US smart weapon arsenal means that there is not a lot of body part remains left to count in many military contacts. These ex-people will not be brought to morgues or hospitals because there is literally nothing left of them after they have been hit by high explosive or high powered ordinance.
Lancet attributes least half the excess casualties to a higher civilian mortality rate flowing from social disintegration brought on by war. The disruption of the UN’s Oil for Food programs caused Iraq’s child malnutrition death rate to go rise.
By the same token, anti-war protesters should be giving more prominence to Husseins deliberate massacres. There is little evidence that these massacres or malnutritions were occuring on a large scale whilst Hussein was under US/UN containment.
- Jack, why has no-one except the Lancet survey noticed the hundred thousand dead people?
Why is the median value of the survey so different from the actual count of fatalities?
And why does everyone quote the median value? The Lancet article estimates between 8,000 and 200,000 excess deaths. The actual reported “excess” deaths – largely insurgents and their victims – is higher than that lower bracket. If people quoted the range, there would be little argument. 8,000? Sure that’s plausible – in fact, it’s probably low.
The problem is that everyone (everyone here being The Left) cites “100,000” as though someone had counted 100,000 bodies. Which is utter baloney. As is, clearly, the upper bound of 200,000 excess deaths. No, the Americans have not smart-weaponed an entire city into extinction. We would have noticed, Jack. Besides which, smart weapons are expensive. You use them on military targets, not on civilians.
You might well ask why the Lancet study produced results so at odds with reality, but the fact is, it did.
- Hang on, Jack, did not the UN report that ~25% of Iraqi children were malnourished under the oil-for-fat-UN-bank accounts scandal, with a figure of ~8% now?
This is the reporting that the BBC (IIRC) inverted to a trebling of the rate of malnutrition among Iraqi children, rather than a 66% (approx) reduction.
Quoting Tim Lambert is also dangerous. If you are referring to the UNSW gent, he is a polemicist par excellence. As with junkies, never trust a polemicist – or either stripe.
MarkL
Canberra
MarkL
Canberra
- I find this stuff almost racist, it’s like the left refuse to accept that anyone who isn’t America is incapable of mass murder these days, like they lack the technology or logistics, too stupid and primitve to point a gun in the right direction.
And smart weapons are indeed very expensive, if you wanna wipe out cities then carpet bombing is the way to go, B-52s just loaded with piles and piles of simple high explosives. When you start doing that, people are going to take notice.
Posted by Aging Gamer on 04/18 at 02:04 AM • #
Tim Lambert, a scientist alright
He’s computer scientist, in other words, not a scientist at all.
And I say this as someone who studied said subject at the exact same school that upside-down-T-Tim now makes his home.
Oh gawd, and he teaches Computing 1A. Poor little first-years… At least they don’t have to survive on 50KB of disk space and a 2400-baud terminal on a PDP-11/70. As I in turn managed to miss the punched-card era.
- Jack, I think you’ve spent too long in Margolia. If we can’t disporove something then it is wrong? No one needs to disprove the Lancet study at all. LANCET ARE THE ONES ON WHOM THE BURDEN OF PROOF LIES. With a margin of error between 8k and 200k, I would like to see their evidence before I believe them. Their method was basically to ask people if they knew anyone who died at US hands. Lets say that they asked me and I say “Yeah, they killed Uncle Bob”. That’s 1. Now they go up the street and ask my Brother. He says “Yeah, they killed Uncle Bob”. That’s 2. Now they ask the nice lady up the road and she says “Yeah, they killed my friend Bob” etc etc etc. That’s 3 or more dead for every 1 Uncle Bob isn’t it?. Shit way to do a survey really.
The Lancet study’s head line figure of 100,000 was slightly misreported in the press
Jack, that’s like saying a woman is “slightly pregnant”.
OTOH, your dogged persistence in supporting the Lancet study in spite of its obvious flaws and errors might be described as “sort of obsessed”. That’s right up there with describing Tim Lambert’s focus on the same subject as “somewhat pathological”, let alone suggesting that Tim Lambert is “a little biased”.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 04/18 at 03:55 AM • #
- I am quietly confidant that heart disease will solve the Phillip Adams problem in the near future. I will of course greatly miss him droning on about his hobby farm and his racist anti USA rants.Posted by Astonished on 04/18 at 03:58 AM • #
- Another Tim-who dis one Tim Tam? At a separate but parallel universe of A.B.C. Australia talks Back about paganism.Rachael Cohn and Sandy McNutcase discuss such phenomena as the Ecomonastery – which don’t you know is the centre of the Cosmology,the Gaiea is the Biosphere. One young woman happily announced that she was a primary school teacher and also a Pagan Priestess- take note education minister! She also said she runs a Coven in Perth (listen up Alan Carpenter) and is always driven by this belief system. Apparently the right to your own “religion “ is protected under Federal Constitutional Law.Quote from Rachael Cohn” “Many people WANT christianity to be a Goddess religion with a Sex Rite at the centre.” As a final caller said “Devil reversed is Lived”.
Sandy says this will be a great L.N.L. tonight it is about Antonio Negri and the outrage at him being connected with the Red Brigades. Is he an armed Terrorist or an Academic falsely accused? Phil the turkey baster will decide.
As I in turn managed to miss the punched-card era.
Lucky you, Pixy! Gawd, even using the modified IBM Selectrics as input/output were lightyears beyond using the stolid kerchunker to punch out the Hollerith code on an IBM card…..and God help you if you hit the wrong key.
Yes, this dates me. I don’t care, so long as you don’t mistake me for Tim Lambert. Who vaguely resembles one of those old kerchunkers, now that I think upon it.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 04/18 at 05:31 AM • #
- The Lancet study indicated that between 8000 and 200,000 people died.
The methodology of the study makes it plain that the statement above is true. BUT IT IS NOT A NORMAL DISTRIBUTION CURVE. The statement itself is reasonably accurate, and precisely nothing else can be said for it. There is exactly as much chance as 8001 being the right figure as 199,999.
In other words, it is pretty bloody meaningless, for uts says “between 8000 and 200,000 people died, but we have NO CLUE as to the real number” Hey, that is so useful, don’t you think?
So people said, “huh, must be a bell curve… that means the evilrunning dogimperialist lickspilleaggerssoryankeevermin have killed 100,000 people.
No it doesn’t. It means that people orally ascribe somewhere between 8000 and 200,000 deaths to teh intervention.
And nothing more.
MarkL
CanberraPS – I asked a statistician today! he actually had a bit of a chuckle about the methodology, calling it ‘an outcome in search of backing’.
Also, the enormous destructive power of the US smart weapon arsenal means that there is not a lot of body part remains left to count in many military contacts.
Actually, smart weapons tend to have smaller warheads than standard weapons. You see, they’re more accurate, so they don’t need to have as much of an area of effect…
Posted by Rob Crawford on 04/18 at 07:03 AM • #
Lucky you, Pixy! Gawd, even using the modified IBM Selectrics as input/output were lightyears beyond using the stolid kerchunker to punch out the Hollerith code on an IBM card…..and God help you if you hit the wrong key.
Yeah. I’ve actually used a cardpunch, just not in anger. 🙂
I think I came along at the right time. Late enough to miss the really painful stuff (punched cards, paper tape, doing the IPL with front-panel switches) but early enough to get a solid grounding back when a single person could know everything about a machine. These days… I have no idea what my Windows box is doing half the time. (It’s got 2GB of RAM! What is it doing with it all?!)
Only having 50K of disk space kinda sucked though. It’s nice to be able to just walk into a store and buy 250GB. Hey, I’m low on disk. Think I’ll up and buy me another quarter of a terabyte.
Yeah.
Civilian wounded:death ratios are about 7:1. Are you seriously saying, Jack, that 700,000 people have been wounded in Iraq? What utter garbage.
No, I think his argument is that these are “excess deaths”. Not people who actually got killed, but people who died. Like, excessively. Or something.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Now that would be a full-time job.
- Hey Tim, Don’t feel obliged to read anything Philip Adams says.Posted by Kofi Annan on 04/18 at 09:12 AM • #
- Pixy, Jack is beyond shame, else he wouldn’t keep on spewing out his nonsense.
OT….yeah, it’s interesting to talk to the “younger generation” (ACK! I hate that! I’m not growing older! I’m not growing older!) about computers. They are whiz-bangs on web browsers, C++ source code, HTML, etc. But ask them about machine level code, and you get a blank look. Usually, not always.
This was brought sharply to my attention when I brought my college drafting kit with me to a group project, where we had to draw circles on wood prior to cutting. I wanted to do a plan, to show what I meant for the layout. Of course, my drafting kit is pre-computer CADD—plastic templates, french curves, compass and dividers, scales, drafting pencils and pens, etc, in a wood carry case that doubles as a draft table.
We started the meeting, and I opened the kit to start the plans. Naturally, the lads were interested in what was in it.
One of them, a bright, intelligent, energetic young man (18 years old) who has lots of promise (he both flys an airplane and plays the violin), picked up my collection of templates (a wide assortment of circles, ellipses, squares, rectangles, triangles, etc, which were the envy of my fellow students in college), and said…..
“What are these? Hey, wait, I know! My 5 year old brother plays with something like this!”
He’s still alive. But I had to restrain myself! :^D
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 04/18 at 09:12 AM • #
- Pixy: I got into computers after punch cards but before DOS was entirely off the scene. I remember the good old days of being able to take my Windows 3.1 machine apart, add cards, fool around with the settings, and so on. Now, like you, I have this mysterious creature next to my desk that does everything but cook and serve dinner (or it would if I had all the peripherals I need) and I’ve only seen the inner guts of it maybe once. Well, if I ever earn enough to buy the dvd burner I want I guess that will change.Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 04/18 at 10:14 AM • #
- I wonder what Mr. Adams has to say about the Kuwaiti bodies they’re now finding in Southern Iraq in mass graves dating from the first Gulf War. So far, only 190 of the 650 still missing have been identified. Even the Iraqis are calling their country a “land of mass graves”.
But, hey, they’re Iraqis. Who’s going to listen to them?
- Kuwaitis. Not a care.
If the Americans, the British, or the Aussies don’t perform the killing, Phillip Adams doesn’t care. Because it does not allow him to feel morally superior. Otherwise you would see column after column criticizing the third world tyrants who massacre their own people.
With these people, the focus is never on the victims. Not really. Rather it’s on them and how good they are for pointing out the crimes of the great powers. Makes for more enjoyable cocktail parties.
Posted by wronwright on 04/18 at 04:45 PM • #
- Jack said:
“Also, the enormous destructive power of the US smart weapon arsenal means that there is not a lot of body part remains left to count in many military contacts.”
Jack, this is bullshit. The largest weapon in use is the Mk 84 (a 2000lb laser guided bomb). Because of its blast radii, this weapon is used very sparingly indeed near built up areas containing civilians.
When a weapon can hit a DMPI (desired mean point of impact) at the desired angle and velocity to achieve the desired effect, you can script each aircraft mission load to each sortie by weapon type, using minimum necessary force every time.
Targeteering is a precise science, and it is done in concert with a lawyer (part of the targetting cycle) to ensure that the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) are being observed. That is how a targetting cell works.
And that is why, today, western militaries can get by without indiscriminate bombing/shelling as per WWII. It saves lives on both sides, saves unnecessary destruction, and saves money.
You have not the slightest idea what you are talking about, do you, Jack?
MarkL
Canberra
- Comment # 14 Posted by Pixy Misa on 04/18 at 02:53 AM
Jack, why has no-one except the Lancet survey noticed the hundred thousand dead people?
Because noone else has bothered to do a proper scientific estimate of overall war-related excess casualties. The US military has decided to more or less ignor non-US mortality stats. As General Tommy Franks says: “we dont do body counts.”
Why is the median value of the survey so different from the actual count of fatalities?
The median value represents an active attempt at an overall demographic estimate, not local reactions to violence. As explained in the original comment the survey method is an active measuring system, whilst the official statistical agencies use passive systems of measurement, and then only for victims of violence. Passive systems would underestimate persons killed in provincial or tribal jurisdictions. They also under report children who have died of malnutrition or others who died because road blocks or insurgents have disrupted social organisation.
And why does everyone quote the median value?
The survey’s median values are a measure of central tendency which is what statisticians consider the most probable indicator of the actual result. This is based on the notion of Confidence Intervals where surveyors assign probablity values to various population estimates ranging on the samples distribution curve. In this case the surveyors assume a normal distribution which implies a 67% probability that the actual Excess Death Toll is between 50,000-150,000. Or a 33% probability that the EDT deviates from this range either < 50,000 or > 150,000.
Also, the enormous destructive power of the US smart weapon arsenal means that there is not a lot of body part remains left to count in many military contacts
So if we don’t see a body there, that counts as a corpse?
Posted by richard mcenroe on 04/18 at 07:17 PM • #
- Sorry Jack, my guess is that Iraqi deaths number maybe 10,000. The majority of those were caused by the insurgents/terrorists. My guess is as good as Lancet’s. Maybe better. I can count.
I think we should all give credit to the US and coalition military for taking great effort to keep the casualties to a relatively low number. At great expense and risk.
Posted by wronwright on 04/18 at 08:40 PM • #
Because noone else has bothered to do a proper scientific estimate of overall war-related excess casualties.
Despite your claims to the contrary, both the civilian and military authorities in Iraq have been tracking fatalities. Not even close to what the Lance reports.
As explained in the original comment the survey method is an active measuring system
As opposed to counting the dead people, which I take it is a passive measuring system?
Passive systems would underestimate persons killed in provincial or tribal jurisdictions.
Why?
They also under report children who have died of malnutrition
Give me a cite for any children dying of malnutrition in Iraq.
or others who died because road blocks or insurgents have disrupted social organisation.
Why?
If you count the dead people, you get a number. Why would this under-report people who had died after their “social organisation” had been “disrupted” by a roadblock? They’re dead. You count them.
In this case the surveyors assume a normal distribution
My emphasis.
Look, Jack, we know that there’s no way 100,000 people have been killed directly by any combination of insurgent/terrorist violence or American/Iraqi/allied anti-terrorist actions. Every instance is reported; there simply haven’t been enough attacks to kill that many people.
So what you have to claim is that there is some tenuous connection between the violence and non-violent deaths which we have no direct evidence are actually happening.
Reeeeally weak, Jack.
- Comment # 15 Posted by MarkL on 04/18 at 02:54 AM
Hang on, Jack, did not the UN report that ~25% of Iraqi children were malnourished under the oil-for-fat-UN-bank accounts scandal, with a figure of ~8% now?
This is the reporting that the BBC (IIRC) inverted to a trebling of the rate of malnutrition among Iraqi children, rather than a 66% (approx) reduction.No. The figures that MarkL refers to are unsourced and his interpretation is unintelligible. The Washington post reports a recent UN/Iraqi survey detailing the disastrous and perverse results of post Gulf War I international sanctions on Iraq. It shows a startling (post-war) rise in Iraq child malnutrition in the early-noughties after the UN oil-for-food program had reversed the early-nineties sanctions trend towards greater child malnutrition.
After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq’s Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway’s Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program.
International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002.
But the invasion in March 2003 and the widespread looting in its aftermath severely damaged the basic structures of governance in Iraq, and persistent violence across the country slowed the pace of reconstruction almost to a halt.The entire US/UN attempt to disarm Hussein of WMDs appears to have been nurgatory. GHB’s first Gulf War and cease fire agreements more or less did the trick.
However various degrees of injury have been added to this insult. The current UN admin, for all its faults, reduced Iraqi child malnutrition. The current US admin, for all its virtues, increased Iraqi child malnutrition. People, its time that we started to learn from our mistakes.
- Comment # 17 Posted by Pixy Misa on 04/18 at 03:12 AM
[Tim Lambert is a] computer scientist, in other words, not a scientist at all.
Lambert’s personal web page reports that his first degree was in maths. Presumably this means that he can handle Stats 101.
He research page reports that he is pursuing further studies in the computer science of virtual reality. I would not go as far as agreeing with George Johnson that “All science is computer science.” But virtual reality is part of all reality. A digital model of virtual reality requires an empirically testable theory of that part of reality. It follows that a digital scientist is scientist alright.
- Comment #19 Posted by Gibbo on 04/18 at 04:08 AM
If we can’t disporove something then it is wrong? No one needs to disprove the Lancet study at all. LANCET ARE THE ONES ON WHOM THE BURDEN OF PROOF LIES.
Gibbo seems to be confused about the philosophical principles underlying the practice of science. It is logically impossible to prove a negative ie confirm, by universal truth detection, the general absence of an entity. It is logically possible to disprove a positive ie refute, by particular error correction, the local presence of an entity. If Gibbo has trouble getting his head around this then he should consider the Black Swan.
Scientists generally accept that it is impossible to provide a once and for all-time final proof of a theory because we lack the comprehensive data and computational resources to build an absolutely faithful to nature model. We therefore have to sample the worlds virtually infinite population of data points and use maths to sketch a model by joining the dots. This is precisely the method chosen by the Lancet researchers under very hazardous and adverse conditions.
I do not claim that the Lancet studies positive findings are 100% certain. I do find their study more informative and probably closer to the truth than the Iraqi governments sketchy body count, the US Army’s non-existent civilian body counts and the Lancet-denialists statistical follies. Certainly the Lancet study has not been refuted by any credible scientfic agency.
- Comment # 27 Posted by murph on 04/18 at 08:13 AM
Civilian wounded:death ratios are about 7:1. Are you seriously saying, Jack, that 700,000 people have been wounded in Iraq?
Most stats on military casualites give a 3 WIA:1 KIA ratio. What is the source for the 7:1 ratio?
I have no idea of the amount of wounded persons in Iraq. I would not be surprised if it was > 100,000.
I think that murph is getting the logic of Lancets implied interpretation of Iraq’s WIA/KIA ratios back to front. A seven-to-one civilian wounded to killed ratio assumes a high quality community services system that mananges to patch up the borderline cases. This is precisely the part of Iraqi society that Lancet suggests is under most stress and is breaking down.
Thus we would predict that, for any given level of casualties in Iraq’s disintegrating social support system, the KIA to WIA ratio would rise as badly people failed to make it to hospital or died in poor facilities. Have you had a look at an Iraqi makeshift hospital recently?
- MarkL, re: #35:
Excellent post! You are entirely correct on the targeting cycle, including the presence of a lawyer. As usual, Ol’ Jack has displayed his ignorance on military technology and tactics before in this blog. And, again as usual, he has been called on his ignorance. Of course, he brushes aside the facts, and continues to post comments as though he is the final authority on the subject. Which he is not.
I am also quite amused by his latest attempts to support the Lancet “study” (love those danger quotes!), where he actually goes so far as to accept an imperfect statistical survey over an actual body count (a “guess” versus a “measurement”). Talk about ignoring facts!
And then we have his laughable attempt to support Lambert’s title as “computer scientist”, where he somehow digs up the term “digital scientist”, which must be a variation of “digital brownshirts”, i.e., complete nonsense. If I were going to defend Lambert as a scientist, I would have Googled for Lamberts research papers, and cited the references. Instead, Jack just pulls facts out of his ass, as he always does.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 04/19 at 12:31 AM • #
- Jack, on post #44, the 3:1 ratio is used to estimate military casualties. MILITARY casualties, as in combatants, in this case, soldiers and terrorists. Non-combatants, i.e., civilians, have a different rate, since they are killed and wounded as part of the “collateral damage” (ugh, what a euphenism!) in war. That’s because civilians are not specifically targeted by the military, since they are non-combatants. Get it?
Well, in the case of Iraq, there is this little problem of the terrorists deliberately targeting the civilian population. The Coalition, of course, goes out of their way to avoid shooting non-combatants, but, alas, not always successfully.
The terrorists, as we all know, are all too successfull in their attacks.
I haven’t seen any “rule of thumb” for non-combatant casualties in Iraq (it’s a new war in that regards), so I can’t verify the 7:1 figure. But I can and do point out that your analysis in this post is full of holes. As an example, many wounded Iraqi civilians are treated by Coalition forces, regardless of who did the shooting. I’ve read a number of accounts in the MSM alluding to this. Ancedotal evidence, to be sure, but at least I’m producing facts that can be referred.
Unlike your link, for example. What’s the date on that photo? Where’s the caption? That could be a first aid point, set up for initial treatment, stabilization, and triage before transport to a hospital for further treatment. Note the evidence of medical supplies (bandages, wounded laying on blankets, and IV drips). And is it in even in Iraq? Why not, say, Iran? Or Afghanistan?
Given your habit of making stuff up, Jack, most folks here aren’t going to take you at your word. In this case, it’s evident that you’ve fallen back on your old habits of hijacking threads for attention.
That’s OK, we all know that you’re an idiot.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 04/19 at 12:50 AM • #
- Comment #25 Posted by MarkL on 04/18 at 07:43 AM
The Lancet study indicated that between 8000 and 200,000 people died. There is exactly as much chance as 8001 being the right figure as 199,999
No. It is not the case that all or any values chosen within the statisticly significant (95% +/- 2.5% tails excluded) range are equally likely. The surveyors assume that their sample accurately reflects a presumed normal population distribution. The correct statistical inference is that there is a 67% probability that the correct population figure lies within one standard deviation of the sample’s predicted mean. The sample predicts a range of normal values between 50,000 and 100,000, with the median point (~100,00) being most probable.
So people said, “huh, must be a bell curve… that means the evilrunning dogimperialist lickspilleaggerssoryankeevermin have killed 100,000 people.
BUT IT IS NOT A NORMAL DISTRIBUTION CURVE.One cannot say with apodictic certainty, in advance of a complete census, whether any population distribution curve is normal, poisson or binomial. Here is a neat graphic illustrating the differences. Lambert points out that even if the population distribution is binomial or Poisson it is
reasonably approximated by a normal distribution in this case.
I believe that Lambert’s “distribution indifference” conclusion follows from the Central Limit Theorum. I am now running up to the limits of my statistical know-how, so I welcome criticism on this point.
- Jack –
Lambert’s personal web page reports that his first degree was in maths. Presumably this means that he can handle Stats 101.
Not necessarily, no. But that’s not my prime argument with him.
And mathematics is not science. Not in any way. It’s a completely separate discipline. Science is founded on mathematics, but that’s different.
It follows that a digital scientist is scientist alright.
Speaking as one such, I can tell you we isn’t.
The entire US/UN attempt to disarm Hussein of WMDs appears to have been nurgatory. GHB’s first Gulf War and cease fire agreements more or less did the trick.
That is a remarkably stupid statement. (Also: “nurgatory”? Jack, if you want to use twenty-dollar words, at least try to get them right.)The first Gulf War destroyed the Iraqi army as it was then. Had we not instituted the campaign of containment – sanctions, monitoring, no-fly zones – he would have quickly re-armed.
However various degrees of injury have been added to this insult. The current UN admin, for all its faults, reduced Iraqi child malnutrition.
The data backing this assertion is of questionable accuracy.
More to the point, the UN administration misappropriated tens of billions of dollars.
The current US admin, for all its virtues, increased Iraqi child malnutrition.
Nope.
Assuming that Iraqi child malnutrition has increased at all – again, a rather dubious assertion – you still have to show that this was related to the activities of the US administration. The fact that this putative increase may have happened during that administration is insufficient.
People, its time that we started to learn from our mistakes.
Let us marvel at the deadpan delivery of that line.
Jack, Saddam Hussein was a murderer, rapist, torturer and thief on a massive scale, the jailor of an entire nation of over twenty million people.
We got rid of him.
We should have done that a decade ago, but we learned from our mistakes and went back and finished the job.
So what’s your problem?
- Folks, I made an error when posting in response to Jack. Yes, I did!
Back in post #47, I made the comment:
”…where he somehow digs up the term “digital scientist�?, which must be a variation of “digital brownshirts�?…”
My mistake is that I did not take my advice, and Google the term “digital scientist”. It was new to me, and I just assumed it was something that Jack made up.
Well, he didn’t just make it up. When I realized I had mocked him without checking my facts, I felt ashamed, and the need to repent was overwhelming. So I hit Google to see what would happen.
Alas, I am in error, and I must apologize for that. “Digital Scientist” is in fact not a new term. Imagine my surprise when I Googled “digital scientist”, and saw that I had all of 38 hits.
Must be a relatively new branch of science, Jack. Perhaps I need to read more.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 04/19 at 04:50 AM • #
- Comment # 50 Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 04/19 at 05:50 AM for once backs down from an wrong-headed and ill-willed accusation.
Well. Done. The_Real_JeffS.
“Digital Scientist�? is in fact not a new term. Imagine my surprise when I Googled “digital scientist”, and saw that I had all of 38 hits.
Digital Science gets 97,400 pages in google.
It was new to me, and I just assumed it was something that Jack made up.
Well, he didn’t just make it up.The Real Jeff S has stated numerous times that I just “make up facts”, “pull them out of the air” etc. But has never once produced a quote or link to verify my mischief.
From here on the SOP for these claims will be to put up, back down or shut-up.
