5 ms·

“Lead exposure in childhood may have played a small role in rising and falling crime rates in the USA but it is unlikely to account for the very high percentage

“Lead exposure in childhood may have played a small role in rising and falling crime rates in the USA but it is unlikely to account for the very high percentage of the decline suggested by the ecological studies” [1] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3829390/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3829390/

alexandercrohde 9y ago
I'm not sure why you're posting that link here. In academia, no single study is treated as conclusive. For example, when scientists observed a 50% decrease in men's sperm count in the last 30 years, they cited a meta-study which reviewed data from 185 other studies. [1] If you look on google scholar. It's trivial to find well over 100 lead-crime studies. The one you linked to seems to be only published-online, and not a meta-study, so it's not clear on what basis you (cherry?) picked it. https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmx022 https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmx022
- jupiter90000 9y ago
  For me it's good to have a healthy dose of skepticism about these things, especially when it comes to social studies. I didn't like the conclusive tone of the mother jones article personally. The mother jones author does a fairly amateur analysis and concludes: "I’d say that basic cohort analysis supports the lead-crime hypothesis, while age analysis might not." The article I posted is a counterpoint to this in which an academic cohort study is reviewed finding lead explains less than 1% of the variation in crime in a cohort, and another cohort study there reviewed found no association between lead exposure and murder -- so a relevant article to post here, I'd say. Do you consider the results in the MJ article to be as robust as a meta-analysis and if not, do you have the same criticism of that article? (in which case, fair enough)

5 ms·

“Lead exposure in childhood may have played a small role in rising and falling crime rates in the USA but it is unlikely to account for the very high percentage

by jupiter90000 9y ago

alexandercrohde 9y ago
I'm not sure why you're posting that link here. In academia, no single study is treated as conclusive. For example, when scientists observed a 50% decrease in men's sperm count in the last 30 years, they cited a meta-study which reviewed data from 185 other studies. [1] If you look on google scholar. It's trivial to find well over 100 lead-crime studies. The one you linked to seems to be only published-online, and not a meta-study, so it's not clear on what basis you (cherry?) picked it. https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmx022 https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmx022
- jupiter90000 9y ago
  For me it's good to have a healthy dose of skepticism about these things, especially when it comes to social studies. I didn't like the conclusive tone of the mother jones article personally. The mother jones author does a fairly amateur analysis and concludes: "I’d say that basic cohort analysis supports the lead-crime hypothesis, while age analysis might not." The article I posted is a counterpoint to this in which an academic cohort study is reviewed finding lead explains less than 1% of the variation in crime in a cohort, and another cohort study there reviewed found no association between lead exposure and murder -- so a relevant article to post here, I'd say. Do you consider the results in the MJ article to be as robust as a meta-analysis and if not, do you have the same criticism of that article? (in which case, fair enough)