I came across this one: http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent death rate in major American cities. Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to interpret this?
Gabor Grothendieck wrote:> I came across this one: > > http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 > > which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably > includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent > death rate in major American cities. > > Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to > interpret this?Well, I don't. But I remain very skeptical anyhow. I had heard earlier that the violent death rate for *American military personel* in Iraq is lower than the violent death rate in American cities --- which seems more plausible. But still not very plausible. Or maybe major American cities are even worse than we had been led to believe. cheers, Rolf Turner
On 5/19/2006 7:54 AM, Gabor Grothendieck wrote:> I came across this one: > > http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 > > which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably > includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent > death rate in major American cities. > > Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to > interpret this?The New York Sun is not a reliable newspaper. It may be completely fabricated, and it seems likely that it is: The population is 26 million. The violent death rate quoted there is 25.71/100000, implying about 6700 deaths per year. There were about 846 American deaths in Iraq in 2005. It doesn't seem credible that there were only 8 deaths (from any violent cause) for each American death. There's a web site at http://www.iraqbodycount.net/press/pr13.php (biased in the opposite direction from the Sun) that claims there were 14000 civilians violently killed in 2005. This probably doesn't include police or members of the armed forces. Duncan Murdoch
Le 19.05.2006 13:54, Gabor Grothendieck a ?crit :> I came across this one: > > http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 > > which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably > includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent > death rate in major American cities. > > Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to > interpret this? >Is Mr Bush collecting the data ? BTW : "How about a Parisian jaunt? Noooo. Too many riots." Come on ! That's ridiculous ! -- visit the R Graph Gallery : http://addictedtor.free.fr/graphiques mixmod 1.7 is released : http://www-math.univ-fcomte.fr/mixmod/index.php +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Romain FRANCOIS - http://francoisromain.free.fr | | Doctorant INRIA Futurs / EDF | +---------------------------------------------------------------+
Hi R-users, I have the following code: f <-function(x,p)sqrt(-(x^2)-2*log(1-p)) r1 <-sqrt(-2*log(1-0.95)) r2 <-sqrt(-2*log(0.05)) on executing i get the following results> f(r1,0.95)[1] 0> > f(r2,0.95)[1] NaN Warning message: NaNs produced in: sqrt(-(x^2) - 2 * log(1 - p)) I tried to track the problem and found that the answer to log(0.05) is different from the answer to log(1-0.95) which is ofcourse not true and hence it causes problems in the code print(log(0.05),digit=22) [1] -2.9957322735539909> print(log(1-0.95),digit=22)[1] -2.99573227355399 Any possible explanation ? Regards Anthony
On 5/19/2006 8:25 AM, Gichangi, Anthony wrote:> Hi R-users, > > I have the following code: > > f <-function(x,p)sqrt(-(x^2)-2*log(1-p)) > > r1 <-sqrt(-2*log(1-0.95)) > > r2 <-sqrt(-2*log(0.05)) > > on executing i get the following results > >> f(r1,0.95) > [1] 0 >> f(r2,0.95) > [1] NaN > Warning message: > NaNs produced in: sqrt(-(x^2) - 2 * log(1 - p)) > > I tried to track the problem and found that the answer to > log(0.05) is different from the answer to log(1-0.95) which > is ofcourse not true and hence it causes problems in the code > > print(log(0.05),digit=22) > > [1] -2.9957322735539909 >> print(log(1-0.95),digit=22) > > [1] -2.99573227355399 > > > Any possible explanation ?R uses finite precision arithmetic, usually giving around 15-16 digit accuracy. Your results agree in the first 15 digits. Duncan Murdoch
I guess it all depends on what you include in the category of "violent death". This study is the only one I'm aware of to attempt to address this: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673604174412/fulltext (there's a registration but I think it's free, can't remember). -roger Gabor Grothendieck wrote:> I came across this one: > > http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 > > which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably > includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent > death rate in major American cities. > > Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to > interpret this? > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html >
Googling for: What Every Computer Scientist should know about floating point arithmetic Gets you to a very enlightening pdf about these issues. Hth, ingmar> From: "Gichangi, Anthony" <anthony at stat.sdu.dk> > Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 14:25:51 +0200 > To: R-help <r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch> > Subject: [R] Precision in estimating log > > Hi R-users, > > I have the following code: > > f <-function(x,p)sqrt(-(x^2)-2*log(1-p)) > > r1 <-sqrt(-2*log(1-0.95)) > > r2 <-sqrt(-2*log(0.05)) > > on executing i get the following results > >> f(r1,0.95) > [1] 0 >> >> f(r2,0.95) > [1] NaN > Warning message: > NaNs produced in: sqrt(-(x^2) - 2 * log(1 - p)) > > I tried to track the problem and found that the answer to > log(0.05) is different from the answer to log(1-0.95) which > is ofcourse not true and hence it causes problems in the code > > print(log(0.05),digit=22) > > [1] -2.9957322735539909 >> print(log(1-0.95),digit=22) > > [1] -2.99573227355399 > > > Any possible explanation ? > > Regards > Anthony > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
For what the article says, every country should have a war to have a lower violent death rate!! Gabor Grothendieck wrote:>I came across this one: > >http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 > >which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably >includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent >death rate in major American cities. > >Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to >interpret this? > >______________________________________________ >R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > >-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Angelo M. Mineo Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche e Matematiche "S. Vianelli" Universit? degli Studi di Palermo Viale delle Scienze 90128 Palermo url: http://dssm.unipa.it/elio
Though I agree that the violent death rate in US cities is sad, I would also guess that the estimates are relatively accurate. I would also say that the "experimental design" assumed in the article is potentially badly flawed, with tremendous underreporting in Iraq and meticulous reporting in US cities. Hank On May 19, 2006, at 10:04 AM, Elio Mineo wrote:> For what the article says, every country should have a war to have a > lower violent death rate!! > > Gabor Grothendieck wrote: > >> I came across this one: >> >> http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 >> >> which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably >> includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent >> death rate in major American cities. >> >> Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to >> interpret this? >> >> ______________________________________________ >> R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help >> PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting- >> guide.html >> >> >> > > -- > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ------------ > Angelo M. Mineo > Dipartimento di Scienze Statistiche e Matematiche "S. Vianelli" > Universit? degli Studi di Palermo > Viale delle Scienze > 90128 Palermo > url: http://dssm.unipa.it/elio > > ______________________________________________ > R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting- > guide.htmlDr. M. Hank H. Stevens, Assistant Professor 338 Pearson Hall Botany Department Miami University Oxford, OH 45056 Office: (513) 529-4206 Lab: (513) 529-4262 FAX: (513) 529-4243 http://www.cas.muohio.edu/~stevenmh/ http://www.muohio.edu/ecology/ http://www.muohio.edu/botany/ "E Pluribus Unum"
On 5/19/06, Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:> I came across this one: > > http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 > > which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably > includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent > death rate in major American cities. > > Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to > interpret this? >Since I posted this a number of people have responded online and offline and have included a number of links. I am providing the links from the offline responders. I was hoping to summarize all this in an objective fashion focused on statistics but there is enough information here that I was concerned I might not do a thorough job so I am simply providing the links plus some short comments to summarize the links that did not already appear on the list. The original idea of making this comparison was apparently due to US Rep. Steve King and the first link gives his rebuttal to critics who made similar comments to those shown on the list so far. His main points are that the data does not come from him, he used published figures on icasualty.com (and for US the sources cited in the link) and that his original comments were in the context of civilian safety and so it would not be appropriate to include police which is why he excluded them (I had originally thought it included all violent deaths but that is not the case). Since my original post was about vacationing in Iraq I would think that excluding police would also apply to that too. A number of people on the list did point out that defining violent death was key. http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008402 Part of the previous link is in response to the following link: http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008392#iraq Original source of the iraq data: http://icasualties.org/oif/ Story of one person who tried to pursue the numbers: http://zenbeatnik.blogspot.com/2006/05/where-numbers-lead.html
Note that the reference to icasualty.com should be icasualty.org. On 5/23/06, Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote:> On 5/19/06, Gabor Grothendieck <ggrothendieck at gmail.com> wrote: > > I came across this one: > > > > http://www.nysun.com/article/32787 > > > > which says that the violent death rate in Iraq (which presumably > > includes violent deaths from the war) is lower than the violent > > death rate in major American cities. > > > > Does anyone have any insights from statistics on how to > > interpret this? > > > > Since I posted this a number of people have responded online and > offline and have included a number of links. I am providing the > links from the offline responders. > > I was hoping to summarize all this in an objective fashion > focused on statistics but there is enough > information here that I was concerned I might not do a thorough > job so I am simply providing the links plus some short comments > to summarize the links that did not already appear on the list. > > The original idea of making this comparison was apparently due to > US Rep. Steve King and the first link gives > his rebuttal to critics who made similar comments to those > shown on the list so far. His main points are that the data does > not come from him, he used published figures on icasualty.com > (and for US the sources cited in the link) and that his original > comments were in the context of civilian safety and so it would > not be appropriate to include police which is why he excluded them > (I had originally thought it included all violent deaths but that is > not the case). > Since my original post was about vacationing in Iraq I would > think that excluding police would also apply to that too. A number of > people on the list did point out that defining violent death was key. > > http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008402 > > Part of the previous link is in response to the following link: > http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008392#iraq > > Original source of the iraq data: > http://icasualties.org/oif/ > > Story of one person who tried to pursue the numbers: > http://zenbeatnik.blogspot.com/2006/05/where-numbers-lead.html >