29156: Bourik Chaje (response): re Simidor (29138) flaws in the Lancet study (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

 From: Bourik Chaje (paperdoc@gmail.com)


Those of you complaining that the coverage of the Lancet Study "scandal" in
the popular press employed hyped words like "investigation" – when there was
no "investigation" – must applaud Daniel Simidor for presenting his
enumeration of "flaws" in the study. When you get to the end of his
penetrating, unbiased "analysis" of that scholarly study, here is what you
will learn:


   1. The study chose to examine the wrong time period, according to
   Professor Simidor. While they chose to look at acts of violence following
   the coup. the Professor would have recommended, had he been first asked,
   that they choose the significant date of January 1, 2000. He explains that
   this date is an important one to begin the study because . . . because . .
   oh, wait, he doesn't in fact explain why this date is anything but random.
   We are awaiting the Professor's own study of violence in Haiti during the
   period that the study neglected.
   2. The Professor states that "the majority of respondents in the study
   are pre-literate." He objects to these people being included in the study,
   because they don't tell the truth the way all us folks with our books and
   computers do. Anyone who has spent any time in academia or in government (or
   in jail) knows that educated folk are much more likely to tell the truth.
   3. The researchers failed also to follow the Professor's own method of
   identifying all the victims by cross-checking with "interviews with
   associates and neighbors, and by combing available birth [sic] and death
   records." Professor Simidor does not explain to the researchers, or to
   Corbett readers, how birth records will shine light on the matter at hand,
   but he seems to have a firm grasp on the rest of the methodology, and I am
   not prepared to question him.
   4. The professor shows proper disdain for those victims who, as he
   says, "conveniently died" during a time period favorable to Aristide. Some
   of them, he seems to suggest, might have cynically arranged their own demise
   just to make the deposed president look good. How "convenient" indeed! Maybe
   these dead people could be the first ones rounded up and put in jail after
   the next coup.
   5. Another flaw is that Athena Kolbe is ... well, Athena Kolbe. Just
   as you couldn't expect the French to tell you who won the World Cup this
   year, you can't expect anyone with an agenda to report on how many suffered
   in the aftermath of Haiti's anti-constitutional coup. Professor Simidor
   suggests that any attempt by Ms. Kolbe to count the victims of the post-coup
   reality in Haiti is *en soi* flawed. As the Professor suggests, she
   may even have herself recruited the interviewers who tricked the unlettered
   folk into making up stories about dead bodies and gang rapes!
   6. Another flaw in the study is that it did not count all the crimes
   that Professor Simidor believes should have been counted. Kidnapping, for
   example. There is some insinuation here, but we will apparently have to wait
   for Professor Simidor's own study to find out just how excluding other
   categories of crimes skewed the numbers in favor of his dreaded bogeyman.
   7. Finally, Professor Simidor uncovers the grand flaw in the study. He
   knows, and will certainly demonstrate with empirical evidence, that people
   who were termed "criminals" in the study were in fact Lavalas supporters by
   day, just like in the bogeyman myth.

Unfortunately, Professor Simidor's email arrived in abbreviated form,
because the documentation and footnotes to substantiate all the "flaws" that
he uncovered were omitted.

 The great service that Professor Simidor performs for the world here is to
demonstrate the gulf between data and fancy ... between clear thinking and
wishful thinking ... between enumeration and speculation. After reading
Professor Simidor's lucid analysis, it is clear that the writers of the
Lancet study simply transmitted opinions and wishful thinking based on their
own political preconceptions. Professor Simidor, on the other hand,
demonstrates his own intellectual rigor, and shows that the way to debunk
such dribble is to dispense with speculation and words like "might," "would"
and "may"; stick to the facts; and provide hard data in order that people
can make up their own minds.

 And like a potboiler novelist, Professor Simidor, who clearly must himself
know how many were slaughtered in the aftermath of the coup, keeps us
hanging. Surely he will soon publish the results of his own investigation
and reveal the true number of dead and raped in the name of anti-Lavalasism.

 M'pa kanpe ...