Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
1.0 Intro Even though the lead author of the Lancet Iraqi Mortality Survey (LIMS) [free req reg], Les Roberts, has himself repeatedly described cluster sampling as an “imprecise” method of studying violence from airstrikes, many continue to argue that the quality of the LIMS falls just short of divinely revealed truth. Since both I and … Read more
In the midst of our blog-talk about the left, A&L put up “All God’s Children Got Values” by Michael Walzer. He begins his argument: The experts have apparently agreed that it wasn’t values that lost us the last election. It was passion, and above all, it was the passion of fear. He discusses the state … Read more
(This is a totally unserious post, nothing about China or Bush or Iraq or the Lancet article or World War II. So only click to see the rest if that is OK with you.)
Thanks to Heiko’s and Jonathan’s comments; they have a sense of proportionality. Also Heiko shows us what a good study can do: narrow, real, thorough; then it points to modifications that will (clearly their motive) save lives. I delete most of my friend’s e-mails on Schiavo or skim them to be polite. To him, as … Read more
My use of strong language to describe both the process and people involved in creating and publishing the Lancet Iraqi Mortality Survey has really set some readers off. I used such language intentionally, expressly because I did not wish to convey the impression that the only matters under discussion were dry scientific technicalities with no … Read more