Published by The Lancet, a venerable British medical journal, the study [PDF] used previously accepted methods for calculating death rates to estimate the number of “excess” Iraqi deaths after the 2003 invasion at 426,369 to 793,663; the study said the most likely figure was near the middle of that range: 654,965. Almost 92 percent of the dead, the study asserted, were killed by bullets, bombs, or U.S. air strikes. This stunning toll was more than 10 times the number of deaths estimated by the Iraqi or U.S. governments, or by any human-rights group.
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How to explain the enormous discrepancy between The Lancet’s estimation of Iraqi war deaths and those from studies that used other methodologies? For starters, the authors of the Lancet study followed a model that ensured that even minor components of the data, when extrapolated over the whole population, would yield huge differences in the death toll. Skeptical commentators have highlighted questionable assumptions, implausible data, and ideological leanings among the authors, Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, and Les Roberts.
Some critics go so far as to suggest that the field research on which the study is based may have been performed improperly — or not at all. The key person involved in collecting the data — Lafta, the researcher who assembled the survey teams, deployed them throughout Iraq, and assembled the results — has refused to answer questions about his methods.
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When it comes to the question of peer review, the study’s defenders sometimes seem to want it both ways. On the one hand, Roberts talks about the need “to step beyond peer review.” Yet the authors insist that their study was peer-reviewed extensively (if rapidly, in order to be published before the election). The authors also maintain that one of the reasons they went to The Lancet with these studies is its quick turnaround time.
Surprisingly, not one of the peer reviewers seems to have thought to ask a basic question: Are the data in the two studies even true? The possibility of fakery, editor Horton told NJ, “did not come up in peer review.” Medical journals can’t afford to repeat every scientific study, he said, because “if for every paper we published we had to think, ‘Is this fraud?’ … honestly, we would fold tomorrow.”
It really makes me laugh the way you people self re-enforce your delusions:
the iraq war is legal because its been going on since 91
the jh methodology is garbage
unilateral military action is exceptable
morning star knows nothing of war
morning star is the one ignoring the facts
morning star is a woman
All these statements are in fact 100% backwards.
Next thing you ya hoos will be telling me is we had to go into iraq for the wmd’s and osama.
Well m, you did get one thing right. The JH methodology is garbage. I could explain why (again, because Loki and ET already did that) but given the fact that you can’t spell “acceptable” I think its very likely you won’t understand what I said.
No doubt you have single handedly uncovered the truth, that the US military made Bush declare war on Iraq so they could kill women and babies because they like to do that kind of thing. The Lancet probably missed a couple hundred thousand. Oh right, and its all about oil. Which we don’t need at all of course, we can use windmills.
Congratulations, you’re a world famous humanitarian. You’ll be popular at Rabble, please go where you are wanted.
But morningstar (and who cares if you are male or female or any variation thereof) – you are:
Ignoring facts. You haven’t provided any facts. We’ve provided some facts for you but you don’t seem to understand the difference between fact and fiction.
Your definition of a ‘legal war’ is ridiculous. You define a war as legal IFF it’s OK’d by the UN. Since when and why is that a definition of a legal war? Again, you aren’t thinking, morningstar.
To even come close to validating such a definition, you’d have to inform us WHY a UN validation makes a war legal/illegal? What is there, about the UN, that would convince the world population that UN decision-making has any moral, ethical or legal validity? Please tell us.
Yes, the Lancet/JH methodology is garbage. We’ve explained how, morningstar. You haven’t told us why you think it isn’t garbage. Provide some methodological and statistical proof for your conclusion, please. Just because YOU say it’s not garbage, is meaningless. You obviously have no knowledge of methodology, data gathering or statistics. So, please tell us why we should accept your ignorant conclusions?
Remember, you even informed us at first, that the Lancet and JH were two different studies! heh.
Again, morningstar, asserting something is irrelevant. Pigs oink and dogs bark. But a human’s words are supposed to REFER to something. And a CRITICALLY THINKING human’s words are supposed to be based on FACTS, evidence, and a valid analytic method. All you do is ..assert. No facts.
No thinking. Nothing….fade away, morningstar. The light of facts and reasons obliterates you.
After all these years science has come down to this. We don’t actually do any experiments, we just sit around reading each others ‘peer reviewed’ theories.
AGW has the theory down pat except no one will actually do an experiment to see if CO2 has any effect on temperature.
Lancet publishes a series of numbers about the people killed in a war except no one actually does a body count.
Upon this nonsense we are supposed to be running an orderly society?
Heck – I own several seasonally adjusted new cars.
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/071217/d071217b.htm
I could never afford them all if they were unadjusted.