Reply #29: This is a scientific study [View All]

[dummy-du1]

Considering the extremely large spread between the lower and upper estimate, it would seem to me that the basic methodology of the study might be flawed.


And I think you and your Republican friends don't have a clue about statistics. The study says that there were 98.000 extra deaths
in the 14 month period after the US/UK-invasion compared to the 14 month period before.

The 95% confidence interval is 8,000 - 194,000. The meaning of this is that there is also a 2.5% chance that there were less than 8,000 or more than 194,000 deaths. There is also a very small probability that nobody has died because of the invasion, but that doesn't make it true. Those numbers describe the normal distribution of the study's result. The estimate is the maximum of the probability function of a normal distribution, or the highest point of the bell curve. This is not a flaw, it's how you do scientific studies.

The IBC numbers alone show that there are at least 15,000 deaths (which happened to not be an Iraqi solder and end up in a report), so the real value of deaths must be greater than 8,000. But the study doesn't only offer statistics, the interpretation is also quite important. The percentage of violent deaths before the invasion was only 2%, and now violence is the main cause of death. This is consistent with the dramatic rise in mortality that was observed in the study. This is even true, if the Falluja data is excluded, because of the intense conflicts there. So it's much more likely that real number is even greater than 98,000.

Do you really think that a study like this had been published in "The Lancet", if it wouldn't have been peer reviewed by a lot of very clever people? Especially, if the conclusions drawn in the study are so explosive? The estimates done in the study are the most conservative possible. If there were any major flaws in the study, they already would have shut the magazine down. It's just another instance of the US-Administration's downplaying and disregarding of scientific results.

BTW: It's always funny if people try to compare these numbers to the deaths caused by the "new Hitler" Saddam. It would be more honest to add them, and ask Saddam's buddy Rumsfeld about it.