tlambert

Stuart Benjamin writes: [John Lott's] core thesis, though, was called into doubt by a number of researchers, most prominently in a study (and reply, both complete with data sets) written by Ian Ayres and John Donohue, two top empirical economists. They concluded that the data did not support…

The National Academy of Sciences panel on firearms and violence has reported its findings. The press release says: There is no credible evidence that "right-to-carry" laws, which allow qualified adults to carry concealed handguns, either decrease or increase violent crime. To date, 34…

Lavoisier group member Louis Hissink has a response to my post and John Quiggin's on the Lavoisier group. A summary cannot do it justice, so I will quote extensively: A quick scan of the blogosphere reporting on William Kininmonth's recent book launch on Monday 22 November by the Lavoisier…

Nominations have opened for the 2005 Australian Blog Awards. I don't you should take awards like these too seriously, but they are a good way for folks to let others know about interesting blogs.

The biggest limitation of the Lancet study is the small sample size. We can be reasonably confident that deaths have increased in Iraq since the invasion, but the 100,000 estimate is a very rough one. The sample from Falluja found an alarming number of deaths from air…

The London Daily Telegraph has been running a cynical and dishonest campaign in the UK to give people the right to defend themselves against burglars. It's dishonest because, as I have detailed here and here, people in the UK already have the right to defend themselves against burglars or anyone…

Excellent news. Some climate scientists have started a blog called RealClimate, something sorely needed to correct the disinformation put about by Tech Central Station and the like. I hope they can do for climate science what The Panda's Thumb does for evolution. One of the…

This post is a way for me to keep track of which blogs have blogrolled me. If you have a blog and have had the good taste to blogroll me, you can add your blog here. [Go here to see the table and the form.](http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/survey/backlink.html)

Mike Harwood asked Les Roberts about the breakdown of the violent deaths. Roberts' reply: Yes, all 12 non-coalition violent deaths happened outside of Falluja. (1 Kut, 1 Thiqar, 1 Karbala, 7 Baghdad, 1 Diala, 1 Missan, Note Baghdad is about 3-7 times greater in population…

In an email to a poster at The High Road forum Lott writes "The actual data has been available on one of my websites at www.johnlott.org since February 2003. The Appendix of my book, The Bias Against Guns, goes through and discusses the data in depth. I talk about how the survey was done, the…

Daniel Davies takes apart another bogus critique of the Lancet study, this one from the British Foreign Office that relies on comparing apples to oranges. Michael Lewis at Iraq Analysis has a more detailed rebuttal. Remarkably, Tech Central Station has published an article by Iain Murray…

Medact, a UK health charity has a new study on the effects of the war on health and the health system in Iraq. Some extracts: A recent scientific study has suggested that upwards of 100,000 Iraqis may have died since the 2003 coalition invasion, mostly from violence, mainly air…

Just when you thought you had seen all the different possible attacks on the Lancet study, Helle Dale, writing in the Washington Times, comes up with a new one: the study's authors are having second thoughts. Dale writes As the Financial Times reported on Nov. 19, even the…

Yes, he's back! Over at his website Fumento has posted Hate Mail, Volume 32, which contains his creatively edited version of our exchange. According to Fumento, it went like this: Fumento: And no, the Lancet column I wrote didn't just appear in the four papers you mentioned. It…

The Lavoisier group is an Australian astroturf operation. John Quiggin observed that: This body is devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics, discovered by among others, the famous French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, cease to apply when they come into conflict…

The latest pundit to attack the Lancet study is somebody called John Lott. He writes: I haven't spent a lot of time going through the methodology used in this survey by Lancet, but I don't know how one could assume that those surveyed couldn't have lied to create a false…

I haven't commented on Kaplan's shoddy critique of the Lancet because Daniel Davies already demolished it here. Kaplan did have one argument that Davies did not address, so I will deal with that in this post. Kaplan wrote: The survey team simply could not visit some of the randomly chosen…

David Adesnik has replied to my post on malnutrition in Iraq. He has conceded that the Washington Post was reporting the results of a new survey rather than the results of one from 2003. But he is still arguing that the war did not cause the increase in malnutrition seen in the…

One of the arguments made against the Lancet study was that the study had greatly underestimated the pre-war mortality rate, because the study found that it was about 29 per 1000 live births, while UNICEF estimated that it was 108. Now the 108 dates from 1999, but sceptics…

Chris Bertram points out that a new study suggests that the Lancet's finding of an increase in infant mortality following the invasion of Iraq is correct. The Washington Post reports: After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two…

Our dog has developed a fear of traffic. Since we live on a busy street, this is a problem. It all started when he was crossing the street with Carmen and a car went through the red light without even slowing, passing less than a metre in front of him and smashing into the side of another car…

Darp and Jess organized a get together of bloggers in Sydney last Friday. I wandered along and, well, there were a lot of people there. Despite having been to two previous such gatherings, the only bloggers I had met before were Jason Soon and c8to. I'm too lazy to link…

The latest pundit to have a go at the Lancet study is Andrew Bolt. Like most of the critics, Bolt just does not have the statistical background to produce a competent critique. In Bolt's case this is even less excusable, since he had the benefit of the Economist's excellent…

From Kieran Healy I learn that Otis Dudley Duncan has died. It was Duncan who started the investigation into John Lott's mysterious survey. When Duncan first contacted me with his concerns, I found it almost impossible to conceive that someone would fabricate a survey rather then admitting to a…

Tech Central Station has an article by Robert McHenry criticising Wikipedia for inaccuracy. Yes, this Tech Central Station. McHenry found an error in the Wikipedia article on Alexander Hamilton. Of course, within hours of his pointing out the error, it was fixed. Unlike the numerous and…

Sadly, it looks as if Michael Fumento has retired from the field. All I can offer any folks suffering withdrawal symptoms is this thread. James M describes it like this: I noticed a truly spectacular example of what I suppose is the unarmed kamikaze approach to debate carrying…

Kevin Drum is displeased that the LA Times published another op-ed from John Lott: The man is a fraud and the Times demeans itself by allowing him space on their pages.

For someone who holds blogs in contempt, Michael Fumento sure spends a lot of time posting comments to blogs. Here he is again: (Hat tip: John Fleck, now the third site on a Google search for "Michael Fumento") My writing on the Lancet article has been Fleck's obsession for over a…

The Site Meter counter just ticked over to 300,000 visits. I really appreciate all the visitors, especially the ones who have left comments.

The Times Higher Education Supplement has produced a list of the world's top universities. They must have used a good methodology because UNSW came in at number 36. The United States dominated the list, with 20 out of the top 50 places. I wasn't quite sure exactly where all the American…