4 ms·

This type of anecdata is exactly what the article is trying to convince people not to fall prey to. From the actual article: > Ultimately there is no solid pr

This type of anecdata is exactly what the article is trying to convince people not to fall prey to. From the actual article: > Ultimately there is no solid proof that drugs cause violence. Most drug offenders commit nonviolent offenses and at low rates. Though certainly drug addicts commit more crimes, they commit them at low rates, and the connection between drugs and violent crimes is complex and not conclusive. Empirical evidence that I discovered with Frank McIntyre actually shows that drug defendants commit less violent crime on pretrial release than any other group of defendants.

devilshaircut 11y ago
Actually I believe it is you who misread the article. To pull a quote from the article: > "Both nicotine and alcohol are strongly linked to violence." The poster specifically referred to alcohol in his/her post: > "In one case it was someone raging on alcohol and being angry at the world."
bjourne 11y ago
To prove a generalization false, "drugs do not cause violence", you just need one counter-example. I've found one example where the drugs did cause the (attempted) violence so the generalization must be false.
- mikeash 11y ago
  You're confusing a statistical claim for an absolute claim. You're right that if the claim is "drugs are never, ever the cause of any violence" then you just need one counter-example. But the claim is actually "statistically, violence caused by drugs does not occur at a rate detectably above the rate of violence in general" which means something like that the number of violent acts with drugs as a cause is extremely low, or that violent acts caused by drugs would still have happened just with a different cause if it were not for the drugs.
  - devilshaircut 11y ago
    Actually the article (in the quote the replier posted) uses statistics to so show, evidently, that drug users commit violence less frequently than a control group; the quote does not discount the causal effect of drugs and violence, much less in such a specific case. The way to invalidate the poster's original claim is to show evidence that the violent behavior in that specific instance (or at least a comparable instance) was in no way related to the perpetrator's drug-influenced physiological state. I believe that would be difficult to demonstrate.

devilshaircut 11y ago

Actually I believe it is you who misread the article. To pull a quote from the article: > "Both nicotine and alcohol are strongly linked to violence." The poster specifically referred to alcohol in his/her post: > "In one case it was someone raging on alcohol and being angry at the world."

bjourne 11y ago

To prove a generalization false, "drugs do not cause violence", you just need one counter-example. I've found one example where the drugs did cause the (attempted) violence so the generalization must be false.

mikeash 11y ago
You're confusing a statistical claim for an absolute claim. You're right that if the claim is "drugs are never, ever the cause of any violence" then you just need one counter-example. But the claim is actually "statistically, violence caused by drugs does not occur at a rate detectably above the rate of violence in general" which means something like that the number of violent acts with drugs as a cause is extremely low, or that violent acts caused by drugs would still have happened just with a different cause if it were not for the drugs.
- devilshaircut 11y ago
  Actually the article (in the quote the replier posted) uses statistics to so show, evidently, that drug users commit violence less frequently than a control group; the quote does not discount the causal effect of drugs and violence, much less in such a specific case. The way to invalidate the poster's original claim is to show evidence that the violent behavior in that specific instance (or at least a comparable instance) was in no way related to the perpetrator's drug-influenced physiological state. I believe that would be difficult to demonstrate.