--- Dan Minette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have read about a recent study on the number of > civilian deaths during > the last year in Iraq. The methodology seems, on > paper, capable of > providing at least order of magnitude accuracy (i.e. > differentiating to > within at least a factor of 2). It reports at least > 100k civilian deaths > in Iraq since the US's invasion.. My questions are: > > 1) Is there anything obviously wrong with their > methodlogy?
Yes - the methodology is extremely bad. It uses clustering, etc. The best studies are about an order of magnitude lower. Fred Kaplan, who absolutely hates George Bush and the Iraq War, debunked it quite convincingly in Slate. http://slate.msn.com/id/2108887/ For example, Kaplan believes the Iraq Body Count numbers which are considered, by _every single professional I know_, irrespective of their politics, to be ludicrously high. See http://oxblog.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_oxblog_archive.html#109860216580368293 for a debunking of the IBC numbers, which are an order of magnitude lower and _still_ much higher than the real number probably is. The article itself was published in The Lancet, which has become incredibly politicized over the last few years. It's sad, actually. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
