Leaded Petrol makes yer a crim innit
Discussion
Apols if repost, but not seen this in NPE yet. It may be in GG, but that is a silly place.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615
No more lead in petrol - crime falls across the developed world. Well, maybe. An interesting theory, although doubtless the real explanation is multi-factored, as always. The fact that we mostly have more stuff than we used to and are further away from the war fighting than we used to be may also account for some of the trend.
No doubt some will say that the stats are dodgy and crime hasn't fallen, but although any Government can muck about with stats to some extent, the international trend is interesting, and it seems unlikely that assorted national Governments that can't agree on pretty much anything will all have agreed to screw the stats in the same way.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615
No more lead in petrol - crime falls across the developed world. Well, maybe. An interesting theory, although doubtless the real explanation is multi-factored, as always. The fact that we mostly have more stuff than we used to and are further away from the war fighting than we used to be may also account for some of the trend.
No doubt some will say that the stats are dodgy and crime hasn't fallen, but although any Government can muck about with stats to some extent, the international trend is interesting, and it seems unlikely that assorted national Governments that can't agree on pretty much anything will all have agreed to screw the stats in the same way.
turbobloke said:
As you imply BV72, correlation isn't causation. Next.
I believe in this case they statistically eliminated so many of the other factors that it is indeed a strong and direct correlation.And then there's the neurological impact of lead in your system.
So no, correlation isn't causation, but strong correlation and a well understood cause that maps onto it...?
This one has legs imo. And it's old news, the original study was published about a year ago. Not sure why it only just made it onto the media radar now...
BMWBen said:
I believe in this case they statistically eliminated so many of the other factors that it is indeed a strong and direct correlation.
. . .
This one has legs imo.
It's armwaving pseudo-science, get the full list of so-called eliminated factors and within minutes it will be possible without doubt to add more factors not considered by the study, it's simply not possible to elminate all possible factors in this kind of situation.. . .
This one has legs imo.
Article said:
Wolpaw-Reyes gathered lead data from each state, including figures for gasoline sales. She plotted the crime rates in each area and then used common statistical techniques to exclude other factors that could cause crime. Her results backed the lead-crime hypothesis.
"There is a substantial causal relationship," she says. "I can see it in the state-to-state variations. States that experienced particularly early or particularly sharp declines in lead experienced particularly early or particularly sharp declines in violent crime 20 years later."
The power of self-belief condensed in print "I can see it". Not enough."There is a substantial causal relationship," she says. "I can see it in the state-to-state variations. States that experienced particularly early or particularly sharp declines in lead experienced particularly early or particularly sharp declines in violent crime 20 years later."
Breadvan72 said:
Tut, Ben, turbobloke has spoken, and he may not be contradicted.
Another cheap shot from the PH cheap shot champ.Any social science research of this kind is going to struggle to contain another aspect that we've both mentioned already, the multi-factor nature of the variable under study. I've had the pleasure of lecturing on two masters programmes, one physical science and the other social science, and I've seen many studies of a similar nature with similarly bold claims in that and other contexts to see what's going on. I'm not alone, as per the article you linked to.
Professor of Criminology Brian Matthews said:
This stuff gets disproved and disproved. But it keeps popping up. It's like a bad penny.
Fail.Rewrite.
Not a cheap shot, tb, but an invitation to put away the breezily patronising "nothing to see here, little children, run along" and come up with some arguments. An invitation that you accepted, and your arguments may be right. I don't know. I would myself put more emphasis on various socio-economic factors than on the composition of the atmosphere, but I would be guessing.
Breadvan72 said:
Apols if repost, but not seen this in NPE yet. It may be in GG, but that is a silly place.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615
No more lead in petrol - crime falls across the developed world. Well, maybe. An interesting theory, although doubtless the real explanation is multi-factored, as always. The fact that we mostly have more stuff than we used to and are further away from the war fighting than we used to be may also account for some of the trend.
No doubt some will say that the stats are dodgy and crime hasn't fallen, but although any Government can muck about with stats to some extent, the international trend is interesting, and it seems unlikely that assorted national Governments that can't agree on pretty much anything will all have agreed to screw the stats in the same way.
A report about crime being linked to lead? I suspect the hand of the all-powerful "Copper" lobby somewhere in all this.....http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615
No more lead in petrol - crime falls across the developed world. Well, maybe. An interesting theory, although doubtless the real explanation is multi-factored, as always. The fact that we mostly have more stuff than we used to and are further away from the war fighting than we used to be may also account for some of the trend.
No doubt some will say that the stats are dodgy and crime hasn't fallen, but although any Government can muck about with stats to some extent, the international trend is interesting, and it seems unlikely that assorted national Governments that can't agree on pretty much anything will all have agreed to screw the stats in the same way.
Breadvan72 said:
You forgot to mention pirates.
There's a strong link with the decline of pirates, and the increase in UFO sightings.Back in the 1700s, there were hardly any UFOs, and now, you can't even enjoy a drunken walk through the US midwest without being probed.
I'm fairly sure that there hasn't been many UFOs sighted near Somalia either, and what has Somalia got? Pirates...
For the UK: population getting older (so less crime), most have given up reporting low level crime (so less crime reported), for low level "incidents" plod typically responds wiv "it's a civil matter so there's no way is this going in the big book of crime wot has been reported".
I can undermine further on request.
I can undermine further on request.
Breadvan72 said:
Not a cheap shot, tb, but an invitation to put away the breezily patronising "nothing to see here, little children, run along" and come up with some arguments.
No, a cheap shot followed by a transparent excuse. You could have simply asked.The 2007 paper supposedly claiming to have eliminated the uberlist of other factors confesses on p25 "This list includes nearly all factors that have been considered as possible determinants of crime rates".
Nearly all...there in two words is the massive hole in this claim. The various factors supposedly controlled for aren't even set out in the paper.
Environmental legislation reduced the presence of various pollutants at the same time as lead was being reduced in petrol.
Also and in terms of the thread title, and very importantly, there is credible evidence that lead in petrol was a relatively minor contributor to lead in the blood. For example:
HOME
Research shows a large fall in blood lead levels in England since 1984
http://www.bmj.com/content/313/7061/883.5
BUT
2000 UK leaded phase-out
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/225275.stm
AWAY
In the USA the leaded petrol phase-down began in 1975
http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/lead-poisoning-histor...
AND
Figs 3 & 4 in the linked paper fall back on an arbitrary ~20-year time lag to explain why crime only declined from ca 1990
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13097.pdf
ALSO
The half-life of lead in adult blood has been put at between 20 and 40 days, that's days not years and it's even given in wiki but here's another
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/csem/csem.asp?csem=7&...
While lead in bones can re-enter the blood, this happens mostly in pregnancy/breast-feeding and after a fracture but the report doesn't mention criminality trends for breastfeeding women with a limb in plaster. Old age is also implicated but again there was no mention of geriatric conviction rates.
The paper and the article around it don't prove that lead has no effect and they don't prove that lead has an effect. It's such an armwaving approach as to do little more than blur the picture.
turbobloke said:
Breadvan72 said:
Tut, Ben, turbobloke has spoken, and he may not be contradicted.
Another cheap shot from the PH cheap shot champ.Breadvan72 said:
Tut, Ben, turbobloke has spoken, and he may not be contradicted.
PS: those Romans, eh? Lead piping for the water. Violent nutters, the lot of them.
See also: Cluedo.
Old fashioned 4 and 5 star was full of tetraethyl lead, relatively, and it does have some very interesting neurological side effects. Not quite the same sort of stuff in lead pipes.PS: those Romans, eh? Lead piping for the water. Violent nutters, the lot of them.
See also: Cluedo.
The BBC 'news' first surfaced about in the 1960s, and led to the banning of leaded petrol - together with catalytic converters needing unleaded.
See also:mad as a hatter.
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