Marvin, did you simply skip over my question?
If it helps, assume you're talking to a retired licensed physician, and here's another opportunity to answer the question (in red):
Marvin said-
For multiple reasons I have not asked Beliaev what he thinks of my extrapolations or whether he agrees, disagrees or thinks it at all possible to extrapolate as I have. Primarily I’ve refrained from these questions to avoid putting him into a potential quagmire that could occur in doctor-patient relationships he has or might have with current or future JW patients.
Adam asked-
What medicoethical and/or clinicolegal 'potential quagmires' were you worried about creating, exactly?
Adam asked:
“Surely you accounted for the differing legal policies that exist Worldwide for the protections of minors, who are protected in some lands by court order at different ages? If not, why was the age of '15' used in the study, when '18 yrs old' would've been a more conservative choice more applicable to Worldwide?
“And hopefully you remembered to account for those baptized JW's who are under 15 y.o., but are nevertheless included in the total Worldwide JW headcount (the figure you used was 7.4 million in 2011) which you used to calculate your guesstimate?”
Marvin said-
My extrapolation assumes none of the JWs you mentioned died the result of refusing blood. This is another conservative aspect of my presentation.
The problem is not with your extrapolation, but that while Beliaev's study excluded patients under 15 y.o., that obviously implies they may have INCLUDED patients in the 15-18 yr old bracket in both groups. However, they didn't report the number of patients in the 15-18 y.o. range (in either the 'BT' or the 'no BT' groups). There's no way to KNOW for sure how large these sub-populations were if it wasn't reported, which is critical to consider to avoid errors when extrapolating Worldwide. Hence that is ONE MORE ASSUMPTION you are simply dismissing as irrelevant, when you actually don't know if it's significant.
To make matter worse, you are then extrapolating to the ENTIRE JW population Worldwide figure of 7.4 million, rather than attempting to remove from the figure the number of JWs who ARE baptized JWs under 18 (or whatever age and factor the Courts of the various lands of the World would use to step in to save their lives). With increased moves to push childhood baptism, this number may in fact be quite large, which is precisely WHY the JWs are pushing for childhood baptisms: to swell their ranks. But by extrapolating, you are assuming that Courts wouldn't intervene to protect minors in the 15-18 yr old age, which is hardly a "conservative" approach.
That's CLASSIC propagation and amplification of error, and it undermines your constant claims of being "conservative"; simply saying it over and over (as if a prayer) simply doesn't make it so. You have only increased the uncertainty, and the fact is you really don't KNOW if you ARE conservative or liberal with your attempts to extrapolate.
Adam