I have no reason to doubt that the writers at The Economist, and Jane Galt, are truly educated people, if only because, as George Bernard Shaw noted, the mark of intellect is a passion for statistics.
The Economist’s new blog demonstrates this passion in the ongoing debate of the Lancet Study. The posts continue with the issues raised in (surprise surprise) Assymetrical Information (amongst other places) such as the inconsistency of the Lancet numbers with the Iraqi Body Count but this time we also get an accurate, if diverting and rather patronising lesson on statistical errors. It is also telling. The purpose of the statistics lesson is to draw attention to a potentially fatal flaw in the Lancet Study but The Economist used some sleight of hand here.
This [systematic] is the sort of error that critics are alleging that Burnham et al. made. This is the sort of error that plagues most scientific studies that turn out to be wrong. Thus, stating (over and over) that “their statistical methodology was sound” is irrelevant. What critics saying is not “their calculations were faulty” but “there was something wrong with the sample”. It is perfectly possible that the statistical methodology was sound and that there is something wrong with the sample. Computer scientists have an acronym for it: GIGO, or Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Did you see it? The suggestion is that Burnham is wrong because of the statistical error.
But what does “Burnham is wrong” mean and does it automatically follow from the existence of the sampling error?
One interpretation of “Burnham is wrong” is that the oft quoted 650,000 figure is wrong. To anyone with a basic statistics background though that is evident from the results of the study. 650,000 is only the mean of a distribution that lies with 95% probability between 400,000 and 900,000. In this sense, I agree that Burnham is probably wrong but only because I am looking at the distribution as a whole rather than focusing on one point estimate.
A less charitable interpretation of “Burnham is wrong”, and the one I suspect The Economist is trying to promote, is that the whole study is only more slightly believeable than the results of Saddam’s last election victory. But does the existence and size of the sampling error mean we can throw out ithe conclusion of Burnham in its entirety?
Well of course it depends on what you think the conclusion is. My statistics lecturer used to stress that the underlying message of any analysis had little to do with the numbers. That is especially true in this case because the true message has to be that since the invasion, things have got a lot worse for ordinary Iraqi’s when the promise was that they’d get better. If you think Burnham is wrong in the second sense, then this is the conclusion you disagree with. Now, would the existence of a sampling error reverse this conclusion? I very much doubt it because that would require the actual distribution to contain negative deaths (i.e. more individuals are living now than under Saddam) as well as the number zero - which would suggest the invasion has had a neutral effect on deaths: no more and no less than under Saddam.
Now not even the IBC’s measures include zero so things have demonstrably got worse, so in that sense, Burnham is not wrong. Critics of the study then are either trying to deflect attention away from the failure of the Iraqi policy and/or, even more depressingly, neglecting the need to change that policy.
Perhaps that policy doesn’t need to change because, as The Economist post points out, time may prove that half a million or a million deaths was a price worth paying by Iraqis to rid themselves of Saddam. But then let’s have this debate. Let’s talk about the benefits of the post-Saddam Iraq in terms that go beyond the hyperbole of George Bush. Let’s talk about what Iraqis expect and want in the future and what price they are willing to pay. Let’s talk about the exact nature of their trade-off. Thus far all I hear is the benefits to the West of a democracy in the Middle East and the cost to US/UK taxpayers. What the Iraqis want to know is, how does their substantive freedom from tranny translate into a real capability to enjoy that freedom?
There is nothing wrong in being passionate about statistics. Indeed Keynes’ passion for the subject was second only to fornication. He thus not only proved Shaw’s assertion but also demonstrated a healthy preference ordering. He also knew exactly what he meant when he said “I’d rather be vaguely right rather than precisely wrong”. Burnham, even with a moderate sampling error, is indeed vaguely right and to argue that the situation in Iraq is a lot better is, I’m afraid, precisely wrong.
Is this article for real or is it a joke? The figures from Burnham et al. are not deaths but _excess deaths_ and therefore they could well be negative: the combat casualties could very well be less than the victims of Saddam’s repression plus sanctions. The IBC reports combat deaths, not excess deaths, and therefore it is bound to report a positive number.
Here is a more interesting statistical question: what is the probability that 2 studies, estimating much larger numbers of deaths than any other study, are both published less than one month before two (distinct) US elections?
A Conservative Plan for Iraq
Anyone who questions the lack of a realistic and comprehensive Iraq strategy is labeled a friend of fascism by the Republican leadership. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) recently said, “I wonder if [Democrats] are more interested in protecting the terrorists than protecting the American people.” Republicans are paralyzed with the fear of being thought ineffective on national security and the war.
Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership cannot seem to accept that—regardless of how we got there—we are in Iraq. They have not made a convincing case that an arbitrary phased or date-certain troop withdrawal is in the best long-term interest of the United States. Rather, they seem to think that withdrawal will undo the decision to have gone to war. Rubbing President Bush’s nose in Iraq’s difficulties is also a priority.
This political food fight is stifling the desperately needed public discussion about a meaningful resolution to the fire fight. Most Americans know Iraq is going badly. And they know the best path lies somewhere between “stay the course” and “get out now”.
Some Truths
1) Iraq is having a civil war between the Sunnis and Shiites. The Kurds will certainly join, if attacked. It may not look like a civil war, because they don’t have tanks, helicopters, and infantry; but they are fighting with what they have.
2) Vast oil revenues are a significant factor behind the fighting. Yes, there are religious and cultural differences—but concerns about how the oil revenue will be split among the three groups make the problem worse.
3) Most Iraqis support partitioning Iraq into Shiite, Sunni, and Kurdish regions. (Their current arrangement resulted from a pen stroke during the British occupation, not some organic alignment.)
4) Most citizens of the Middle East who support groups that kill and terrorize civilians—such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or al Qaeda—in part because of their aggressive stance against Israel and the United States, but also because they provide much needed social services, such as building schools.
5) Both Republican and Democratic administrations have spent decades doing business with the tyrants who run the Middle East in exchange for oil and cheap labor. This has been the one of the rallying calls of Bin Laden and Hezbollah—that we support tyrants who abuse people for profits. In fact, our latest trade deals with Oman and Jordan actually promote child and slave labor; it’s so bad the State Department had to issue warnings about rampant child trafficking in those countries.
6) Iran is using the instability in Iraq to enhance its political stature in the region. Leaving Iraq without a government that can stand up to Iran would be very destabilizing to the region and the world.
From the U.S. perspective, this is all mostly about energy. As things stand, a serious oil supply disruption would devastate our economy, threaten our security, and jeopardize our ability to provide for our children.
New Directions
Success in Iraq and the Middle East in general requires us to work in three areas simultaneously: (1) fostering a more stable Middle East region, including Iraq, (2) pursuing alternative sources of oil, and (3) developing alternatives to oil. To these ends we must:
1) Insure that the oil revenues are fairly and transparently split among all three groups: Shiite, Sunni, and Kurds based on population.
2) Allow each group to have a much stronger role in self government by creating three virtually-autonomous regions. Forcing a united Iraq down their throats is not working. Our military would then be there in support a solution that people want, rather than one they are resisting.
3) Become a genuine force for positive change, thus denying extremist groups much of their leverage. Driving a fair two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian problem should be our first priority. We should also engage in projects that both help the average Middle Easterner and Americans, such as supporting schools that are an alternative to the ones that teach hate and recruit terrorists. We should also stop participating in trade deals that promote child and slave labor by insisting on deals that include livable wages and basic labor rights.
4) Declare a Marshal Plan to end our Middle Eastern energy dependency with a compromise between exploring for new sources, reducing consumption, and developing of alternative energies. For example, we should re-establish normal relations with Cuba so we can beat China to Cuba’s off-shore oil. We should also redirect existing tax breaks for Big Oil into loan guarantees for alternative energy companies.
Once we no longer need so much oil from the Middle East, we can begin winning over its people by using our oil purchases to reward positive and peaceful behavior from their leaders. This would ultimately reduce tensions and encourage prosperity in the region.
We will have to live with the threat of Islamic radical terrorism forever; but these solutions are a start to reducing the threat. Both parties have to put politics aside and put together an honest and reasonable plan that the American understand.