Can we agree that the use of any information improperly does not make the information bogus?

For example, a certain wacky astronautical engineer might read a study that indicated that Lichtenstein posesses rockets whose engines have a specific impulse of 500 s. If this engineer then claimed that these figures proved that Lichtenstein was an imminent threat to the USA and should be invaded, that doesn't mean that the information is bogus, just the engineer.

This is where education, not only in the basic fields of study that affect our world but also in critical thinking, is so important.

Too many people do not have a working grasp of too many important fields, and this is what allows the wackos of any movement to hold sway.

Regarding the study of death rates in Iraq, from what I can see of the material, there is a reasonable probability that the 100,000 figure is close to correct. The authors themselves indicate that there is a margin of error in the study and that more work needs to be done in order to arrive at a more accurate number, but of course no estimate will ever be perfectly accurate. So far it is apparently the best we have to go on.

If someone takes this number and uses it to try to demonize the troops on the ground then that person is bogus, not the number. Similarly, if someone dismisses the number because of misrepresented statistical methods and thus tries to trivialize the number of deaths, that person is also bogus. Not the number.

And the extinction of three-spotted fizzwigs may not in itself cause the world ecosystem to collapse, but they may be something like the canary in the coal mine - a symptom of something greater that should not be ignored.

Education.