We can ballpark these odds relatively easily. Dean was 45 and Barnett was 62. Let's assume they are somewhat representative of the average whistleblower and the average whistleblower is in average health. Let's use the standard government actuarial tables[2] and assume the average age is 56 just to make the math easier since the odds of a single 56 year old dying in a given year is roughly 1%. The odds of at least 1 of the 32 dying would be 28% and the odds of 2 dying would be 4%. Unlikely enough to be suspicious, but not unlikely enough to be anything close to the smoking gun that some are suggesting.
Wouldn't it be fair to distinguish between the baseline probability of any death, and the baseline probability of a death that could plausibly be suspicious, such as gunshot suicide?
Sure, this was back of the napkin math and there will be plenty of ways to improve it. The problem is that the more details you add, the more difficult it will be to find actual numbers to put on these things as opposed to using the above actuarial tables if we lump all deaths together.
And for what it is worth, one of these deaths would be in the "suspicious" category and one wouldn't.
I think that would be a statistical mistake to cherry-pick the cutoff like that. What would be the argument for ignoring the X months/years beforehand in which no one died?
If I asked you for the odds of the next three coin tosses being heads, you don't start counting on the first heads. The first toss being tails is a possible outcome that can't be ignored.
That is an excellent point. Maybe the math has to be using the average length of time the whistleblowers have been 'out' as it were. That could plausibly end up being several years, which pushes the 1:32 number a lot closer to 'certain' and the 2:32 number way up into entirely plausible.
We can ballpark these odds relatively easily. Dean was 45 and Barnett was 62. Let's assume they are somewhat representative of the average whistleblower and the average whistleblower is in average health. Let's use the standard government actuarial tables[2] and assume the average age is 56 just to make the math easier since the odds of a single 56 year old dying in a given year is roughly 1%. The odds of at least 1 of the 32 dying would be 28% and the odds of 2 dying would be 4%. Unlikely enough to be suspicious, but not unlikely enough to be anything close to the smoking gun that some are suggesting.
[1] - https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/4/19/boeing-subject-o...
[2] - https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html