At 07:50 AM 10/19/2006 -0400, Bill Arnold wrote:
> The survey was conducted by John Hopkins and published
> in the Lancet. I wonder why an American study
> wouldn't be published in an American publication?
> Maybe because no one would publish this garbage?
Admittedly, I'm not going to run off and spend time to make sure you
don't have a thread to hang onto. I have been following the subject of
...
What this "new information" you have tells me is that two (2)
respectable institutions were involved in publishing that report, not
just one. This makes the report all the more trustworthy.
...
Bill, I know you're very frustrated with the war in Iraq. But, for your own
sake, don't let that completely blind your reasoning. Usually, the best way
to win others over to your way of thinking is to show you're rational. What
you said above hurts that case. For one, you seem to imply you have no
interest in examining a critique of a report you "believe". Next, you imply
you have a 'blind trust' in the 'two (s) respectable institutions'. This
makes you sound unreasonable IMO.
The site Michael mentioned (below), does a good job explaining the
weaknesses of the study (unfortunately, I think it also whines too much
about "Liberal" media - but you can easily skim past that):
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/10/13/054042.php
There is no registration required, and it's not very long. It should only
take you 5-10 minutes to read. If you read it, you might be able to see
something that better supports your original document. Or, you may see
problems with the original report.
In any event, this episode should be a reminder to all of us that the
Internet and information therein cannot be blindly trusted. No matter what
the source is. If you're really after the truth, you need to latch on to
articles that provide exhaustive, detailed, sources of data. Anything other
than that should only be viewed as 'opinion' and potentially flawed and
false (perhaps intentionally, perhaps not). For me, even before the
critiques about the Lancet report responded, I had doubts about the
methodology. Surveys are not reliable in 'counting' type analysis, they are
for 'feeling' or 'impression' type analysis (as a general rule).
I don't recall if I posted this before, but here is another example of
deliberately spreading false information (not necessarily on the Internet).
It would be a good idea to listen to this:
http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp
This is not a one-sided thing. Conservative web sites/press can do the same
distortion as Liberal ones. So the same standard of skepticism should be
applied to any site. Bill, I think you had hopes of the Internet becoming a
"good" information feed to people. I'm afraid that is impossible - the Web
pretty much reflects the personality of the people feeding it. And, by far,
that means the information is definitely biased. I don't think we'll be
able to change that unless some incredibly harsh penalties and regulatory
restrictions are put in place on Internet content. And I don't think most
people would want that. So, in the meantime, you gotta look at the stuff
you read on the Web as essentially 'unsubstantiated' until you yourself
trace down the facts. If the website doesn't give you enough info to do
that, you may as well put it under the "opinion" category as opposed to
"fact" category.
Wading through the junk on the Web to get to the truth is extremely
difficult. Even the article that critiques the Lancet survey is missing
supporting references for its data (e.g. the percentage of the Iraq
population that lives in rural/small town areas). Maybe that listed in the
Lancet report - but if it wasn't, this article should have provided a
reference to where he got the percentages from.
In any event, as the Bible says, there's nothing new under the sun. The
Internet has just provided a different vehicle of what we've always had.
Or, to update a quote from Mark Twain, "If you don't read the newspaper
(watch TV news, read the Internet), you are uninformed; if you do read the
newspaper (watch TV news, read the Internet), you are misinformed."
-Charlie
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