Study of Iraqi Dead Shocking, But Sound Science

**IRONxMortlock** · 10-19-2006, 00:55

650,000 dead but at least they died for freedom, or was that to make the world safer by removing weapons of mass destruction? Regardless, that's a crap load of dead people who should still be alive. How will my children live with the amount of hate that is going to exist in the hearts of the children of these 650,000 dead people? What a terrible legacy to leave future generations. The only hope is that they prove to be better people than us at learning to forgive and turn the other cheek.

The Statistical Assessment Service ( http://www.STATS.org ) - a non-profit, non-partisan media research organization affiliated with George Mason University and committed to correcting scientific misinformation in the media - finds the study estimating 650,000 excess Iraqi casualties since American forces entered the country to be methodologically sound.

In an analyis released today, STATS Director of Research Dr. Rebecca Goldin defended the research technique of cluster sampling behind the study, writing that "the methods used by this study are the only scientific methods we have for discovering death rates in war torn countries without the infrastructure to report all deaths through central means. Instead of dismissing over half a million dead people as a political ploy ... we ought to embrace science as opening our eyes to a tragedy whose death scale has been vastly underestimated until now."

She goes into great detail about both the strengths of the research, as well as the arguments against it.

- Prior Support from the Scientific Community:

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 appeared two years ago by the same authors (at that time, 100,000 excess deaths were reported), the Chronicle of Higher Education published a long article explaining the support within the scientific community for the methods used.

- The Methodology of "Cluster Sampling":

Cluster sampling is a well-established in statistics, and is routinely used to estimate casualties in natural disasters or war zones. For the Iraq study the researchers randomly chose people to interview about deaths in their families, interviewed a cluster of households around them, and then extrapolated the results to the whole population. There is nothing controversial in the method itself, though people can certainly question whether the sampling was done correctly.

- Attacks on Study are Ideological, not Scientific:

There has been a wealth of material on the web attacking the Lancet study. Most of it is devoid of science, and ranges from outrage at the numbers (it's impossible to believe it could be so high), to accusations of bias based on the authors' views of U.S. foreign policy. Interested parties such as the Iraqi government responded quickly by calling the numbers "inflated" and "far from the truth", rather than putting forward any real reasons why these numbers are unlikely to have occurred. President Bush, for one, says he does "not consider it a credible report."

About STATS - Since its founding in 1994, the non-profit, non-partisan Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) has become a much-valued resource on the use and abuse of science and statistics in the media. Its goals are to correct scientific misinformation in the media resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge; and to act as a resource for journalists and policy makers on major scientific issues and controversies. To find out more about STATS, visit http://www.STATS.org.

**Xiahou** · 10-19-2006, 01:02

Sound science my foot.

This study is statistical hocus pocus and manipulation at its worst. Their previous study (suggesting 100,000 deaths) used similarly shaky methods and was discussed and debunked at length here.

As to being non-partisan, one of the study's authors has said himself that he chose the timing of the report in hopes that it could influence the election.

**econ21** · 10-19-2006, 01:26

Originally Posted by Xiahou

This study is statistical hocus pocus and manipulation at its worst. Their previous study (suggesting 100,000 deaths) used similarly shaky methods and was discussed and debunked at length here.

Right - this place is much better at appraising statistical studies (which none of us have read) than the Lancet peer review process.

As to being non-partisan, one of the study's authors has said himself that he chose the timing of the report in hopes that it could influence the election.

This is not unusual when doing policy-related research. For some reason, university research is expected to be useful. For policy-related research (as a study of Iraqi mortality surely is), that means influencing policy. A lot of funding agencies - especially public ones - require project proposals to identify a potential impact on policy. Usually, it's empty promises (most academics are not very useful) but occasionally the topic and the timing might come together to produce something of wider interest. I'm off to an academic conference (on economics) in a couple of days that was timed to influence (read: inform) the Presidential election in the country I'm studying. Nothing sinister or partisan in that.

**Xiahou** · 10-19-2006, 02:16

*sigh*

When we hashed through this hogwash last time people (myself included) had posted links to various criticisms of the study that showed it to be statistically unsound. The numbers shown in the study were totally out of line with even the highest figures given by any other study.

You don't have to look far, even the anti-war iraqbodycount.net has a press release out the criticizes the new figures as outlandish.

A new study has been released by the Lancet medical journal estimating over 650,000 excess deaths in Iraq. The Iraqi mortality estimates published in the Lancet in October 2006 imply, among other things, that:

1. On average, a thousand Iraqis have been violently killed every single day in the first half of 2006, with less than a tenth of them being noticed by any public surveillance mechanisms;
2. Some 800,000 or more Iraqis suffered blast wounds and other serious conflict-related injuries in the past two years, but less than a tenth of them received any kind of hospital treatment;
3. Over 7% of the entire adult male population of Iraq has already been killed in violence, with no less than 10% in the worst affected areas covering most of central Iraq;
4. Half a million death certificates were received by families which were never officially recorded as having been issued;
5. The Coalition has killed far more Iraqis in the last year than in earlier years containing the initial massive "Shock and Awe" invasion and the major assaults on Falluja.

If these assertions are true, they further imply:

* incompetence and/or fraud on a truly massive scale by Iraqi officials in hospitals and ministries, on a local, regional and national level, perfectly coordinated from the moment the occupation began;
* bizarre and self-destructive behaviour on the part of all but a small minority of 800,000 injured, mostly non-combatant, Iraqis;
* the utter failure of local or external agencies to notice and respond to a decimation of the adult male population in key urban areas;
* an abject failure of the media, Iraqi as well as international, to observe that Coalition-caused events of the scale they reported during the three-week invasion in 2003 have been occurring every month for over a year.

In the light of such extreme and improbable implications, a rational alternative conclusion to be considered is that the authors have drawn conclusions from unrepresentative data. In addition, totals of the magnitude generated by this study are unnecessary to brand the invasion and occupation of Iraq a human and strategic tragedy.

The numbers of deaths in any other study I know of don't even approach 1/10th of what the this "study" is claiming, yet you think we should take this one that's based on unreliable survey data instead of the ongoing counts that have tracked actual records. This study doesnt even pass the common sense test as indicated by the above quotes and it flies completely in the face of every single tangible figure we have on the issue... go ahead and try to find another credible study anywhere that even comes close to approaching the figure of 650,000.

I wouldnt use this study to wrap fish in...