What's new

Connection between lead and crime

Very interesting though I do think other social policies or issues like the referenced Roe v. Wade have made a bigger impact perhaps.
 

The article didn't give many specifics on the methodology, but I'm very skeptical. I believe that there's a CONNECTION, just not necessarily the causation that the article claims. There's undoubtedly a connection between POVERTY and lead, and a connection between POVERTY and crime, so that explains a connection between lead and crime. But to demonstrate a causation would require a lot of very careful analysis which may or may not have been done.
 
The article didn't give many specifics on the methodology, but I'm very skeptical. I believe that there's a CONNECTION, just not necessarily the causation that the article claims. There's undoubtedly a connection between POVERTY and lead, and a connection between POVERTY and crime, so that explains a connection between lead and crime. But to demonstrate a causation would require a lot of very careful analysis which may or may not have been done.

I might not always be a fair-minded skeptic, but off the cuff my first reaction was of course our progressive cult enthusiasts would want to believe guns cause crime, and I bet that's about as far as some would need to examine the evidence in this story. I expect to find citations to this article in the next round of gun control hysteria. . . . .

But it looks like the pre-conceived conclusion intended for this study was merely the long-held belief that lead causes brain damage, and therefor maladjustment in otherwise decent well-managed lowlifeforms/quasihuman trailer trash. Wow, I guess I need to re-work my putting words in elitists'/social scientists' mouths. . . . problably the work of just plain ordinary workers in academia struggling to make ends meet and get another grant funded. . . . .

I grew up in a house painted with "cover the earth" lead-based Dutchboy products of National Lead Corporation, and lived most of my adult life in an old house that still had the lead paint, and right next to a major congested commuter route when gas still had the no-knock lead compounds. But while my neighbors were drug dealers and pharmacy thieves who would just do grab-and-run petty larceny, somehow I never got the criminal mentality. . . . . I turned more to philosophical anti-establishment rhetoric. . . . . wait, I guess that's a crime nowadays in some quarters of polite, meaning politically-correct, society, and slated to become the next major law-enforcement "war", the "war on idiots".

Meanwhile, back in the lab, nobody really got excited when studies on metallothioneins, inducible heavy-metal scavernger proteins, showed that environmental heavy metals like lead, cadmium, mercury, and copper cause most living things to produce a sufficient level of metal-binding proteins to greatly reduce the effects of these pollutants. Leaving most of the disease caused by them to acute exposures rather than chronic ones. Just no reason to fund research that's not producing politically-useful public scare issues. . . . .

so, anyway, what it all boils down to is I think Colton's skepticism is at least on the right track if not as rabid as mine.
 
well ah rackin the biggest failyer dat kin be traced back to lead is a failyer in dat ol' number two lead, sho 'nuff, if dat ol' number two lead wooda dun the job it be posed to doin' they'da bin no evidence of brain failyer no how

aint dat so, babe?
 
The article didn't give many specifics on the methodology, but I'm very skeptical. I believe that there's a CONNECTION, just not necessarily the causation that the article claims. There's undoubtedly a connection between POVERTY and lead, and a connection between POVERTY and crime, so that explains a connection between lead and crime. But to demonstrate a causation would require a lot of very careful analysis which may or may not have been done.

Nevins work looked at rising/falling crime rates 9 different countries over 40 years.

I agree you need ot use caution in interpreting results, but this study strongly suggests a causal connection. It's not like New York suddenly lost most of its poverty in the 1990s.
 
I grew up in a house painted with ... when studies on metallothioneins, inducible heavy-metal scavernger proteins,

babe, thank you for that stunning display of anecdotal evidence and pseudo-science.
 
Back
Top