We Can Fix That with Data

The Economist has started a new blog! I, for one, am really looking forward to new posts in the Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics category.

The most recent post extrapolates future Iraqi death counts, and finds that — shocking — a lot of people are going to continue to die.

This is appalling news for Iraq, but could actually be good news for Mr Bush, who may have been too quick to dismiss the numbers out of hand. With that many fighting-age men out of commission, it seems unlikely that the insurgency could sustain its current operational tempo. This suggests that the violence should have died down considerably by the time the next presidential election rolls around in 2008.

This would not, of course, validate the Iraq war; a million or so dead young men is a human cost too terrible for the mind to encompass, especially if all humanity gets in return is another four years of Republican rule.

How do they find out how many people have died? The first few pages of the new Lancet study (PDF) go into some detail. An earlier version of the study was covered by This American Life last year, and if you’re at all interested in the mechanics of gathering data in a war zone, I can’t recommend it highly enough.

This doesn’t really have anything to do with games, and I don’t want to argue about politics. The Economist blog reminded me of that This American Life episode, and I wanted an excuse to post it, because you should listen to it.