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They're missing some corroborative evidence though: several other countries removed lead in different years, and in almost all of them crime dropped around 20 y

by klipt 11y ago

They're missing some corroborative evidence though: several other countries removed lead in different years, and in almost all of them crime dropped around 20 years later. > in the 1990s, even people who had been exposed to lead as children started committing fewer crimes Maybe people also just commit less crime as they age?

trafficlight 11y ago
B&Es are a lot tougher when you've got a bum knee and arthritis in your hands.
Symmetry 11y ago
Or maybe it isn't just a matter of whether someone has been exposed to lead at all but a matter of how much and over what duration. Toxicology is all about the dose but the public (and apparently Vox writers) tend to think about chemicals in terms of exposed/not exposed. A big point of evidence that I didn't see in the Vox or Mother Jones piece is that crime rates seemed to decline in different areas corresponding to when they stopped using leaded gasoline.
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  That was covered in the Mother Jones article: "Reyes discovered that this reduction wasn't uniform. In fact, use of leaded gasoline varied widely among states, and this gave Reyes the opening she needed. If childhood lead exposure really did produce criminal behavior in adults, you'd expect that in states where consumption of leaded gasoline declined slowly, crime would decline slowly too. Conversely, in states where it declined quickly, crime would decline quickly. And that's exactly what she found. Meanwhile, Nevin had kept busy as well, and in 2007 he published a new paper looking at crime trends around the world (PDF). This way, he could make sure the close match he'd found between the lead curve and the crime curve wasn't just a coincidence. Sure, maybe the real culprit in the United States was something else happening at the exact same time, but what are the odds of that same something happening at several different times in several different countries? Nevin collected lead data and crime data for Australia and found a close match. Ditto for Canada. And Great Britain and Finland and France and Italy and New Zealand and West Germany. Every time, the two curves fit each other astonishingly well. When I spoke to Nevin about this, I asked him if he had ever found a country that didn't fit the theory. "No," he replied. "Not one.""
crdoconnor 11y ago
I believe they also measured this on a city level, too, and it fit the hypothesis.

by klipt 11y ago

trafficlight 11y ago

B&Es are a lot tougher when you've got a bum knee and arthritis in your hands.

Symmetry 11y ago

Or maybe it isn't just a matter of whether someone has been exposed to lead at all but a matter of how much and over what duration. Toxicology is all about the dose but the public (and apparently Vox writers) tend to think about chemicals in terms of exposed/not exposed. A big point of evidence that I didn't see in the Vox or Mother Jones piece is that crime rates seemed to decline in different areas corresponding to when they stopped using leaded gasoline.

ZeroGravitas 11y ago
That was covered in the Mother Jones article: "Reyes discovered that this reduction wasn't uniform. In fact, use of leaded gasoline varied widely among states, and this gave Reyes the opening she needed. If childhood lead exposure really did produce criminal behavior in adults, you'd expect that in states where consumption of leaded gasoline declined slowly, crime would decline slowly too. Conversely, in states where it declined quickly, crime would decline quickly. And that's exactly what she found. Meanwhile, Nevin had kept busy as well, and in 2007 he published a new paper looking at crime trends around the world (PDF). This way, he could make sure the close match he'd found between the lead curve and the crime curve wasn't just a coincidence. Sure, maybe the real culprit in the United States was something else happening at the exact same time, but what are the odds of that same something happening at several different times in several different countries? Nevin collected lead data and crime data for Australia and found a close match. Ditto for Canada. And Great Britain and Finland and France and Italy and New Zealand and West Germany. Every time, the two curves fit each other astonishingly well. When I spoke to Nevin about this, I asked him if he had ever found a country that didn't fit the theory. "No," he replied. "Not one.""

crdoconnor 11y ago

I believe they also measured this on a city level, too, and it fit the hypothesis.