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The author brought up more examples besides PNG: * Afghanistan * Nigeria * Congo * South Sudan * Eritrea * Chad * Somalia * South Africa Enough that "a

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".

jjk166 9mo ago
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.
Braxton1980 9mo ago
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?

jjk166 9mo ago

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.

Braxton1980 9mo ago

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?