Tim Lambert
tlambert
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The BBC has Les Robert's answers to questions sent in by readers. Some extracts:
A research team have asserted in an article in Science that the second Lancet study is seriously flawed due to "main street bias."
We worked hard in Iraq to have every street segment have an equal chance of being…
This is a talk about the methodology of the 2004 study, but most of it applies to the new study as well. It's 46 minutes long.
Via lenin.
Tim Blair isn't going to let go of his claim that Richard Garfield criticised the Lancet study.
He offered this quote:
"I'm shocked by the levels they (the investigators) reached," said Garfield. "Common sense, gut level, says it is hard to believe it could be this high. We don't know how many…
In my comments Iraq Body Count's Josh Dougherty throws a tantrum:
Tim, you're a bald-faced liar ... do you really need to be such a monumental fraud and liar to puff up this Lancet study?
Glenn Reynolds has studiously ignored the actual Iraq Body Count they've compiled. This however has him…
Obviously anything Gregg Easterbrook writes about the Lancet study is going to be really stupid, and sure enough, he gives us this:
The latest silly estimate comes from a new study in the British medical journal Lancet, which absurdly estimates that since March 2003 exactly 654,965 Iraqis have died…
Tim Blair, whose reaction to the Lancet study was to reject the entire concept of random sampling offers us this:
Among other Lancet critics: Paul Bolton, a professor of international health at Boston University; Stephen Apfelroth, professor of pathology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine…
In May I analysed the press coverage of the Iraq Body Count and found that the IBC numbers were usually misreported as the number of deaths and the IBC maximum was often reported as an upper bound on the number of deaths. I asked:
Why not contact reporters who get it wrong and set them right?
The…
Sarah Bosely writes in the Guardian:
The critics argued that the Lancet paper does not indicate that the researchers moved far enough away from the main street. "The further away you get, the further you are from the convoys that roll down the streets and the car bombs and the general violence,"…
The editors at Slate really don't like epidemiology. Not content with Christopher Hitchens' clueless attack on the Lancet study they've published another attack on the study. And this one is by Fred Kaplan, the man who made such a dreadful hash of it when he tried to criticize the first Lancet…
Daniel Davies was on the radio talking about the Lancet study.
Richard Miniter interviews Gilbert Burnham.
Deena Beasley reports what experts in cluster sampling think of the study:
"Over the last 25 years, this sort of methodology has been used more and more often, especially by relief agencies in…
I guess that the next time a new physics study comes out Science will ask epidemiologists what they think of it. You see, John Bohannon, the reporter for Science, decided that opinions from a couple of physicists and an economist were more important than getting comments from experts in…
The Washington Post has hosted a on-line discussion with Gilbert Burnham. Some snippets:
"One last point that is hard for many people to understand. The number of people or households interviewed and the number of clusters used does NOT depend on the population of the country. At a certain point,…
I asked Les Roberts to comment on Moore's piece. He wrote:
I read with interest the October 18th editorial by Steven Moore reviewing our study reporting that an estimated 650,000 deaths were associated with the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. I had spoken with Mr. Moore the week before when…
river
The responses were typical- war supporters said the number was nonsense because, of course, who would want to admit that an action they so heartily supported led to the deaths of 600,000 people (even if they were just crazy Iraqis...)? Admitting a number like that would be the equivalent of…
Jim Giles talked to epidemiology experts about the Lancet study. (Nature subscription required):
Data from other conflicts show that such sampling is much more accurate than media reports, which usually account for no more than 20% of deaths. "Random counts force you to go to places that aren't…
It never ceases to amaze me the way the Wall Street Journal combines superb news coverage with a completely clueless editorial page.
To balance an excellent news article by Carl Bialik on the first Lancet study, we have an innumerate article on the editorial page by Steven E. Moore. Moore claims…
Rebecca Goldin:
While the Lancet numbers are shocking, the study's methodology is not. The scientific community is in agreement over the statistical methods used to collect the data and the validity of the conclusions drawn by the researchers conducting the study. When the prequel to this study…
If you read the comment threads on the Lancet study you will know that David Kane frequently pops up with dark hints the authors committed some sort of fraud. Well now he has argued that the Lancet study is likely to be a fraud because the response rate was so high. [Update The post has been…
Anthony Wells:
So, what could have gone wrong? The more excitable fringes of the US blogosphere have come out with some interesting stuff. Let's look at criticisms that don't hold water first.
Firstly, the turnout is unbelievably high. The report suggests that over 98% of people contacted agreed to…
Bill S.2125 was unanimously passed by the Senate and promotes relief, security and democracy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It states:
(5) A mortality study completed in December 2004 by the International
Rescue Committee found that 31,000 people were dying monthly and
3,800,000 people…
You would have hoped the editors of Slate would have taken into account the way Fred Kaplan's innumerate criticism of Lancet 1 was shredded, but they've gone and published an attack on the study by Christopher Hitchens, who knows less about random sampling than Kaplan. I already caught Hitchens…
Lenin on the IBC attack on the Lancet study
I had anticipated that the team behind Iraq Body Count would react to the latest survey on Iraqi mortalities published in the Lancet by trying to minimise their import and undermine their reliability. I was not wrong. The reason is fairly simple: they're…
Radar has a list of America's Dumbest Congressmen. Number 3 is Inhofe:
Inhofe is best known for his categorical claim that global warming is "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people" -- a rhetorical flourish he recently refined by likening climate change theories to Nazi…
The Tripoli six are five doctors and a nurse who were tortured until they confessed to deliberately infecting their patients with HIV. Revere has the latest on the campaign to free them. Mike Dunford list things you can do to help.
Mark Kleiman:
Yes, the survey projected 600,000 excess deaths based on 547 actually reported deaths. That's what "sampling" means, doofus. Every four years, pollsters in the U.S. project the results of voting by 100,000,000 people based on samples of 1000 or so, and get within a few percentage…
Mark Goldblatt mounts an attack on the Lancet study:
The JHBSPH study attempts to calculate the number of civilian deaths "above what would have occurred without conflict." I wonder, therefore, if the survey group was taking into account the effects of United Nations sanctions on Iraq prior the…
There is an interview with Randi Rhodes on the study.
The BBC's Paul Reynolds now has a response from Roberts to some of the criticisms:
"There have to be ~300 deaths per day from natural cause even if Iraq was the healthiest 26 million people in the world. Where are those bodies? When the MOH […
Lindsay Beyerstein spanks Tim Blair:
Having dismissed statistical reasoning, Tim Blair goes on to reject peer review.
It's amazing the lengths some folks will go to avoid believing that the invasion of Iraq killed hundreds of thousands of people. I would have thought the big tough war bloggers…
Richard Horton and Gilbert Burnham are interviewed in the Lancet's podcast on the Lancet study.