Data analysis allows us to get rid of the excuse that war is just messy, and sometimes people die. It’s also part of a larger trend. Over the last 25-30 years, Aronson says, civilian casualties have become more important to how we think about the aftermath of war. In order to really understand what happens to civilians you need both the detail provided by witnesses, and a sense of the big picture that comes from statistics.

Death and the Mainframe: How data analysis can help document human rights atrocities – Boing Boing

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