6 ms·

How is this even remotely good science? So far as I can tell, they didn't admit the possibility that this can be either complete noise (if you have, say 100 dis

by ves 10y ago

How is this even remotely good science? So far as I can tell, they didn't admit the possibility that this can be either complete noise (if you have, say 100 diseases, and you're looking for time-series correlations, or performing tests with too low an alpha or power) or caused by a confounder. The task of making causal claims is a difficult one, and not one to be made lightly. The literature is replete with examples of this going terribly wrong, even with perceived physical justifications. See [0]: tylervigen.com [1]: http://nerdsonwallstreet.typepad.com/my_weblog/files/dataminejune_2000.pdf http://nerdsonwallstreet.typepad.com/my_weblog/files/datamin... [2]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/reinhart-rogoff-austerity-research-errors_n_3094015.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/16/reinhart-rogoff-aus... [3]: http://www.economist.com/node/5246700 http://www.economist.com/node/5246700

josu 10y ago
The article is bad (MotherJones), the paper may be better [1]. I've only skimmed it, but it looks at the correlation between distance from a lead factory and homicide rate, which probably increases the signal/noise ratio. [1] http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbaum_muller_lead_crime.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbau...
- ves 10y ago
  Do you not admit the confounder that proximity to a lead factory should also correlate with socioeconomic status? I don't have time to check out the article this week, but will soon.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    They use rail distance to lead refineries as an instrument variable. They briefly discuss direct poisoning from a refinery. The real kicker is that lead pipes combined with acidic water have a higher effect than lead pipes combined with basic water.
  - peejaybee 10y ago
    "Third, a city-level analysis such as ours does not suffer from a common problem with individual-level studies, namely that individuals exposed to lead typically come from poor neighborhoods with both low-quality housing and high crime rates. Common confounders of the lead-crime relationship in individual-level studies pose less of a problem in our city-level study, where in most cases the entire city population was exposed to lead through water." Paper's here: http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbaum_muller_lead_crime.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbau...
  - Steko 10y ago
    3 Which cities used lead pipes? An important concern in a cross-sectional study such as ours is that the cities that installed lead pipes in the nineteenth century might have differed from the cities that did not in unobserved ways that were correlated with their homicide rates. Based on available data on the characteristics of the cities in our sample, we find little evidence that the cities that used lead pipes differed in observable ways from the cities that did not. Although larger cities, denser cities, and cities with comparatively low rates of home ownership were more likely to have used lead pipes, so were better-educated cities. High-homicide southern cities, meanwhile, were less likely to have used lead pipes. When we predict whether cities used lead pipes using all covariates, the only difference that remains statistically significant is the city population. Using the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) sample of the 1900 census, we calculate several city-level covariates that could be correlated with both lead pipe use and crime.17 These include each city’s population, population density, home ownership rate, and literacy rate, the share of each city’s population composed of African Americans, foreign-born residents, and single men aged 18 to 40, and the share of each city’s employed population working in manufacturing. We also create covariates for cities’ latitude and longitude... > I don't have time to check out the article this week, but will soon. Maybe reading first before accusing them of bad science is a good idea?
sdenton4 10y ago
The real targets here are the crime rates, and the diseases known to be side effects of lead poisoning. And the question is, can we use high level aggregates to observe lead poisoning caused by industrial design decisions? We've seen massive drops on the level of violent crime in the US (and beyond) over the last twenty or thirty years. And the attribution of that drop has huge ramifications. Should we double down on three-strikes laws, or can the drop be attributed to environmental factors like ambient lead levels due to leader gasoline? What I see here is increased evidence for the lead poisoning hypothesis. We know that lead poisoning causes violent behavior; the evidence is indicating that elevated crime rates may be due to undiagnosed poisoning.
- Retric 10y ago
  A lot of crimes in prisons goes unreported, so total crime stats are harder to calculate. EX: Murder seems to clearly be down, male on male rape may be up.
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    A lot of non prison crime goes unreported too - the classic unreported crime is rape. Here it suggests 68% is unreported. https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates
  - MacsHeadroom 10y ago
    Female on male rape is up too, outside of prisons of course. Federal statistics in the past 4 years place unreported female on male rape about as high as all male on female rape. They still call it "made to penetrate" and classify it as 'mere' sexual assault though.
cuchoi 10y ago
Did you read the paper? (I am asking sincerely)
tinalumfoil 10y ago
From the paper: > Our second identification strategy, introduced by Troesken (2006) and Clay et al. (2014), exploits the fact that more lead particulate will leach into water with low pH levels. If lead exposure has a causal effect on homicide, more acidic water should be correlated with higher homicide rates only in cities that used lead water pipes. So there's more causal evidence than appears in the Mother Jones article. The two references for their "identification strategy" don't seem particularly well-cited though. [1][2] [1] http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00396 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00396 [2] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/great-lead-water-pipe-disaster https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/great-lead-water-pipe-disaste...

by ves 10y ago

josu 10y ago

The article is bad (MotherJones), the paper may be better [1]. I've only skimmed it, but it looks at the correlation between distance from a lead factory and homicide rate, which probably increases the signal/noise ratio. [1] http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbaum_muller_lead_crime.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbau...

ves 10y ago
Do you not admit the confounder that proximity to a lead factory should also correlate with socioeconomic status? I don't have time to check out the article this week, but will soon.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  They use rail distance to lead refineries as an instrument variable. They briefly discuss direct poisoning from a refinery. The real kicker is that lead pipes combined with acidic water have a higher effect than lead pipes combined with basic water.
- peejaybee 10y ago
  "Third, a city-level analysis such as ours does not suffer from a common problem with individual-level studies, namely that individuals exposed to lead typically come from poor neighborhoods with both low-quality housing and high crime rates. Common confounders of the lead-crime relationship in individual-level studies pose less of a problem in our city-level study, where in most cases the entire city population was exposed to lead through water." Paper's here: http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbaum_muller_lead_crime.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbau...
- Steko 10y ago
  3 Which cities used lead pipes? An important concern in a cross-sectional study such as ours is that the cities that installed lead pipes in the nineteenth century might have differed from the cities that did not in unobserved ways that were correlated with their homicide rates. Based on available data on the characteristics of the cities in our sample, we find little evidence that the cities that used lead pipes differed in observable ways from the cities that did not. Although larger cities, denser cities, and cities with comparatively low rates of home ownership were more likely to have used lead pipes, so were better-educated cities. High-homicide southern cities, meanwhile, were less likely to have used lead pipes. When we predict whether cities used lead pipes using all covariates, the only difference that remains statistically significant is the city population. Using the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) sample of the 1900 census, we calculate several city-level covariates that could be correlated with both lead pipe use and crime.17 These include each city’s population, population density, home ownership rate, and literacy rate, the share of each city’s population composed of African Americans, foreign-born residents, and single men aged 18 to 40, and the share of each city’s employed population working in manufacturing. We also create covariates for cities’ latitude and longitude... > I don't have time to check out the article this week, but will soon. Maybe reading first before accusing them of bad science is a good idea?

sdenton4 10y ago

The real targets here are the crime rates, and the diseases known to be side effects of lead poisoning. And the question is, can we use high level aggregates to observe lead poisoning caused by industrial design decisions? We've seen massive drops on the level of violent crime in the US (and beyond) over the last twenty or thirty years. And the attribution of that drop has huge ramifications. Should we double down on three-strikes laws, or can the drop be attributed to environmental factors like ambient lead levels due to leader gasoline? What I see here is increased evidence for the lead poisoning hypothesis. We know that lead poisoning causes violent behavior; the evidence is indicating that elevated crime rates may be due to undiagnosed poisoning.

Retric 10y ago
A lot of crimes in prisons goes unreported, so total crime stats are harder to calculate. EX: Murder seems to clearly be down, male on male rape may be up.
- lostlogin 10y ago
  A lot of non prison crime goes unreported too - the classic unreported crime is rape. Here it suggests 68% is unreported. https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates https://rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates
- MacsHeadroom 10y ago
  Female on male rape is up too, outside of prisons of course. Federal statistics in the past 4 years place unreported female on male rape about as high as all male on female rape. They still call it "made to penetrate" and classify it as 'mere' sexual assault though.

cuchoi 10y ago

Did you read the paper? (I am asking sincerely)

tinalumfoil 10y ago

From the paper: > Our second identification strategy, introduced by Troesken (2006) and Clay et al. (2014), exploits the fact that more lead particulate will leach into water with low pH levels. If lead exposure has a causal effect on homicide, more acidic water should be correlated with higher homicide rates only in cities that used lead water pipes. So there's more causal evidence than appears in the Mother Jones article. The two references for their "identification strategy" don't seem particularly well-cited though. [1][2] [1] http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00396 http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/REST_a_00396 [2] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/great-lead-water-pipe-disaster https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/great-lead-water-pipe-disaste...