Comment by jjk166
10 days ago
> That is literally what the article describes, though, in Papua New Guinea.
No it doesn't. It says the UN came up with a different estimate, which the UN wound up not adopting. There is no evidence that the UN estimate actually used better methods.
> I do think the headline exaggerates, I doubt "a lot" are fake, but some do seem to be.
I am strictly arguing against "a lot" being fake, and specifically that an isolated example is not evidence of "a lot."
> There is no evidence that the UN estimate actually used better methods.
The article certainly argues that the UN used better methods. Do you have evidence to the contrary? See:
> So the 2022 population estimate was an extrapolation from the 2000 census, and the number that the PNG government arrived at was 9.4 million. But this, even the PNG government would admit, was a hazy guess... It’s not a country where you can send people to survey the countryside with much ease. And so the PNG government really had no idea how many people lived in the country.
> Late in 2022, word leaked of a report that the UN had commissioned. The report found that PNG’s population was not 9.4 million people, as the government maintained, but closer to 17 million people—roughly double the official number. Researchers had used satellite imagery and household surveys to find that the population in rural areas had been dramatically undercounted.
The article argues, but does not provide evidence. It specifically says the UN used surveys immediately after saying surveys don't work here. There's no validation that estimates from satellite imagery are better than the methods PNG used.
The fact the UN didn't adopt this report would certainly be an argument against it.
It's an article, not a 20 page research analysis. It provides detail aappropriate to its scope.
If you disagree, it's up to you to provide additional evidence to the contrary. The article devotes a paragraph on why the UN didn't release the report. If you want to argue that the UN shelved it for reasons of accuracy rather than for political reasons, please provide the explanation for why the article is wrong and why you're right.
I mean, maybe you're right. I certainly don't know. But the article is going into a degree of depth to defend its reporting, and you're not.
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I think the issue in this thread is that you replied to a person asking a question by quoting the article.
It's implied that it's your position because you argued using the article. Otherwise you're just helping the other by showing them the relevant part the article.
Imagine there was a discussion about a 911 conspiracy article and a person comments "Yeah but wouldn't the fuel burning collapse the building"
If I replied with a quote from the article
"..jet fuel doesn't burn at a high enough temperature to melt steel"
Wouldn't you think that's my view as well since the point of the comments are to express opinions about the article and situation?
The author brought up more examples besides PNG:
* Afghanistan
* Nigeria
* Congo
* South Sudan
* Eritrea
* Chad
* Somalia
* South Africa
Enough that "a lot" seems to be a fair characterization.
Also - while he implies this, I think it's important to mention explicitly - there's obvious fakery in the number of significant digits. If the numbers are approximations to the nearest ten million (or worse), it's a form of scientific fraud to provide a number like "94.9 million".
The only one of those that is an example is Nigeria. All the others are just listed as examples of countries that have not conducted a census in an extremely long time. While that's a good reason to think the numbers are probably inaccurate, it's not a good reason to think they are fake.
> there's obvious fakery in the number of significant digits. If the numbers are approximations to the nearest ten million (or worse), it's a form of scientific fraud to provide a number like "94.9 million"
The numbers aren't approximations to the nearest ten million. Just because they're inaccurate doesn't mean they're imprecise. For comparison if my bank statement is missing a large transaction it may be off the true value by hundreds of dollars, but that doesn't mean they didn't count the cents for the transactions they're aware of.
Since there's a big difference between fake numbers (intentional) and inaccurate (unintentional) numbers we should state they are inaccurate unless evidence states overwise. The reason is that it's practically impossible to get a 100% correct count, probably not even 90% accurate.
1. This means every population count is inaccurate 2. It's not realistically possible to determine how inaccurate the amount is
>If the numbers are approximations to the nearest ten million (or worse), it's a form of scientific fraud to provide a number like "94.9 million"
Doesn't this simply mean if their count is 94.9 the population's true amount is anywhere from 90 to 100 million?