Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Did other countries that used, and then moved away from, leaded gasoline see similar trends?

According to that article, yes:

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."

eta: stp

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Adder

From the article

Still smarting over the dr;sli comment, aren't you?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Why the drop in crime? Pb.

Kevin Drum has been beating this percussion instrument for two years now, and Mother Jones remains the leading proponent of the theory, and the response from the sociology community has been “it’s more complicated than that.” Drum’s response to that criticism seems to have been “Of course they say that; they don’t want to opine themselves out of a job studying the ‘real’ causes of crime.” Which is a funny argument to make when you’re a magazine writer, but okay.

Anyway, the public health folks aren’t lit on fire by the policy advocacy because they were working like mad to abate lead and reduce childhood exposure already, so the cause of the ’60–70s crime spike is largely an academic question if the answer is “lead.”

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Why the drop in crime? Pb.

This is one of the most fascinating articles I've read.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Did other countries that used, and then moved away from, leaded gasoline see similar trends?

Not only other countries. But the numbers tracked up and down by neighborhood.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Kevin Drum has been beating this percussion instrument for two years now, and Mother Jones remains the leading proponent of the theory, and the response from the sociology community has been “it’s more complicated than that.” Drum’s response to that criticism seems to have been “Of course they say that; they don’t want to opine themselves out of a job studying the ‘real’ causes of crime.” Which is a funny argument to make when you’re a magazine writer, but okay.

Anyway, the public health folks aren’t lit on fire by the policy advocacy because they were working like mad to abate lead and reduce childhood exposure already, so the cause of the ’60–70s crime spike is largely an academic question if the answer is “lead.”

I am a huge fan of responses that things are more complicated than that, in part because they are almost always right. But if some people are saying, Pb explains 90% of the phenomena, and the sociologists (and the police unions, etc.) respond, it's more complicated than that, do they mean, you need to look at the other 10% too, or do they mean, Pb doesn't explain that 90%. Sounds like it's the latter -- but if so, where's the beef?

And you'd think the public health folks would be all excited, in a, oh-my-god-now-we-can-make-a-good-case-for-doing-a-lot-more-remediation-than-we-were-otherwise-going-to-get-funding-to-do sort of way.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

This is one of the most fascinating articles I've read.

TM

2 -- I think I've been vaguely aware of this stuff, but I didn't realize how robust it seems* to be.

* An invitation to surly sociologists to bring it.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I am a huge fan of responses that things are more complicated than that, in part because they are almost always right. But if some people are saying, Pb explains 90% of the phenomena, and the sociologists (and the police unions, etc.) respond, it's more complicated than that, do they mean, you need to look at the other 10% too, or do they mean, Pb doesn't explain that 90%. Sounds like it's the latter -- but if so, where's the beef?

And you'd think the public health folks would be all excited, in a, oh-my-god-now-we-can-make-a-good-case-for-doing-a-lot-more-remediation-than-we-were-otherwise-going-to-get-funding-to-do sort of way.

I was finishing my masters in public health when the article came out two years ago. (Note: I am a health policy and administration concentrate, not an epidemiologist or community health person. I think it goes without saying that I am not a biostatistician.) And it was an exhibit in one of my ethics classes (the question was about lead abatement in Baltimore and a public health experiment with dubious attention to ethical implications). The Mother Jones article was brand new and just out to the general public, but it's a theory that's been floating around public health circles for decades. At the time, the two professors I talked to about it seemed pretty interested, but it wasn't in their area of research. I think that there's some research going on at Hopkins and Harvard on the causation/correlation issue. I think it'd be much too short sighted to say that lead had no influence, but yes, it is more complicated.

Also, the lead abatement study cited in the article above sort of shows why it's really, really hard to research these things.

But so is pretty much everything in public health.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

2 -- I think I've been vaguely aware of this stuff, but I didn't realize how robust it seems* to be.

* An invitation to surly sociologists to bring it.

Previously I had Atticus's reaction, but reading the full article does make it seem more robust than I had imagined.

Beyond the funding for abatement question, what other substances are we exposing ourselves to despite the known risks now?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Adder

Previously I had Atticus's reaction, but reading the full article does make it seem more robust than I had imagined.

Beyond the funding for abatement question, what other substances are we exposing ourselves to despite the known risks now?

TSA scanners.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Not only other countries. But the numbers tracked up and down by neighborhood.

TM

This is awesome. I may never read anything again, just post it here and let you guys all summarize.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

TSA scanners.

Sorry, I stepped out for a smoke. What was the question?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

And you'd think the public health folks would be all excited, in a, oh-my-god-now-we-can-make-a-good-case-for-doing-a-lot-more-remediation-than-we-were-otherwise-going-to-get-funding-to-do sort of way.

A colleague won “Trial Lawyer of the Year” from Public Justice for her work on a public nuisance lawsuit to get paint manufacturers to pay for abatement of lead paint in a lawsuit that went on for 10 years. But as RT said, public health folks have known of the neurological effects of environmental lead for a long time; connecting sub-par intellectual function with violence has also been known, but difficult to deal with from a policy perspective for a while. Personally I feel about this the way I felt when I read Freakanomics re: the crime drop due to the legalization of pregnancy termination because of an unborn generation of underclass, which is to say, queasy about the implications but not well-positioned to dispute the reasoning.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Sorry, I stepped out for a smoke. What was the question?

"Who caresses Sidd's inseam?"

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

A colleague won “Trial Lawyer of the Year” from Public Justice for her work on a public nuisance lawsuit to get paint manufacturers to pay for abatement of lead paint in a lawsuit that went on for 10 years. But as RT said, public health folks have known of the neurological effects of environmental lead for a long time; connecting sub-par intellectual function with violence has also been known, but difficult to deal with from a policy perspective for a while. Personally I feel about this the way I felt when I read Freakanomics re: the crime drop due to the legalization of pregnancy termination because of an unborn generation of underclass, which is to say, queasy about the implications but not well-positioned to dispute the reasoning.

The article suggests that leaded gasoline was much more of a problem than lead paint. FWIW.