Talk:Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties/Archive 2

message: Mozzie: References have been provided for the authors' defense of their methodology.  Lapakhin:You incorrectly state that Lancet 2 attributes all excess deaths to violence.  Lancet 2 reports an increase of .6 in the death rate for the post-invasion era due to non-violent causes.  This means roughly 92.3% of the post-invasion increase is attributed to violence.  Lapakhin is also in error regarding the original survey.  Lancet 1 did not explicitly provide a percentage for portion of excess deaths attributed to violence, it can be computed from the available data as 87.8%.  Thus, the percentage of excess deaths due to violence is much less than that stated by Lapakhin.  Lapakhin's substitute language unfairly diminishes the results of the Lancet 2 study in verifying the results of Lancet 1, although I will admit that my original language may be deemed as biased in favor of the study by indicating that the confirmation of the original is a fact rather than an interpretation.  As a compromise, I am replacing the statement with a quote from Lancet 2, thus indicating that the conclusion is the author's interpretation of the data.  I also question the appropriateness of the Steven Moore quote, which lacks any evidence of his authority in interpreting statistical surveys and would like to see more discussion on this point.  Finally, I am including the 95% level chosen for the confidence intervals in reporting those intervals - an oversight from my original entry. -- NeoRedpill  4:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume: "The miscommunication that resulted in no clusters being interviewed in Duhuk and Muthanna resulted in our assuming that no excess deaths occurred in those provinces (with 5% of the population), which probably resulted in an underestimate of total deaths" http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf page 7 Gzuckier 17:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 2006 Survey

message: In an article of this kind there is a natural and understandable tendency for editors to include their own pet theories or those they have read on some blog or other.  This tendency if unchecked leads to the dwarfing of well founded principal concerns by less important matters, and a resulting imbalance in coverage.  Accordingly I've removed or reworded a lot of the criticism section, in some cases trimming back perhaps legitimate criticism simply because it hasn't been adequately cited (this is in accord with our Wikipedia:Verifiability policy).  We really shouldn't be citing blogs here, either, unless they are corroborated by mainstream media or the criticism has been acknowledged by the researchers themselves.
Tbere were unfortunately also some instances of original research in the criticism section.  I have removed or altered wording that appeared to me to be the unsupported personal opinion of a Wikipedia editor. I have also removed a similar amount of weaseling ("pointing out", versus "insisting", "some say", etc). These edits also are in accordance with Wikipedia's policies.
Care should be exercised in restoring any of the removed sections, to ensure that the restorations where undertaken are properly sourced, accurate and neutral, and comply with all other Wikipedia policies.  --Tony Sidaway 10:50, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism section

message: I've removed this paragraph because, in its current form, it looks too close to investigative journalism or original research:
: The authors of the 2004 study state in their 2006 paper, "We declare that we have no conflict of interest." According to The Lancet's conflict policy,http://www.thelancet.com/authors/lancet/authorinfo "all authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organisations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work." The Lancet also states that "conflicts can...occur because of personal relationships, academic competition, or intellectual passion. A conflict can be actual or potential..." Some have argued that at least two of the authors, as well as the editor of Lancet, Richard Horton, have clear conflicts of interest in the publication of this survey. Author Les Roberts has run for the US Congress on the Democrat ticket on a largely anti-war platform,http://www.thatsmycongress.com/lesroberts.html and author Gilbert Burnham contributed financially to his campaign.http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=burnham%2C+gil&txtState=%28all+states%29&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2006=Y&Order=N Editor Horton, too, is an outspoken and fervent critic of the Iraq war, and has charged that the British government "prefers... the killing of children instead of the building of hospitals and schools."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7BzM5mxN5U
If true this is legitimate criticism of the standards used by the authors for declaration of potential conflicts. However we need to report whether they have actually been criticised for this, rather than present our own research on the matter.  This may seem odd, but it's a consequence of being an encyclopedia rather than a commentary website.
Again we see weaseling here.  "Some" have argued,  If they have done so (and not just on some blog or other) then they should be cited. --Tony Sidaway 11:05, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Conflicts of interest

message: Hi, i had a first go at trying to sort out the different types of criticisms against the Oct 2006 report. Wikipedia is about external knowledge, and the type of knowledge represented by a politician criticising a scientist's work is different to that of another scientist criticising a scientist's work, so i think it's useful to separate them out.
The section of "lancet authors' responses" needs a bit of cleaning up. i didn't want to interfere too much in what other people wrote. However, i did remove the weasel word "however,", which didn't make sense after the reorganisation anyway.
And i think what would be really useful is if the lancet authors respond directly to the IBC criticisms - and then we can write a summary of that here. Boud 22:39, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Johnbibby 16:04, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trying to sort out criticisms to the Oct 2006 report 

message: A group of us are planning to develop this section - sp please feel free to improve it, but do not go too mad about removing stuff yet please. (It's NOT original research as suggested by an anonymous editor)
::::Johnbibby 16:04, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Johnbibby 17:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Sampling section