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Earlier quoted context omitted.
It correlates.
https://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations (or https://tylervigen.com/old-version.html ). Just in case anyone ever needs come correlation resources :).
The main problem I see with this study is that it could be confounded by the fact that high air pollution areas have other problems too that could be causing the bad behaviour instead, like overcrowding, noise, frustration at slow traffic, etc.
If a modern research paper cited by the Economist has failed to even account for some of the potential confounding here, then I have great concerns for the future of science.
https://scitechdaily.com/fascinating-and-scary-is-something-...
For all those commenting on 'aren't more polluted areas just more criminal due to other factors", as far as I can tell the researchers examined crime rates for the same place and find correlation with whether there was more Ozone and PM 2,5 on a particular day or not. So they are not comparing clean air neighborhoods to highly polluted neighborhoods, but the same neighborhood on different days. https://www.sciencedai…
The main problem I see with this study is that it could be confounded by the fact that high air pollution areas have other problems too that could be causing the bad behaviour instead, like overcrowding, noise, frustration at slow traffic, etc.
Slow traffic would increase pollution. Noise could be an interesting one, I'm not sure whether there are statistics that measure noise pollution over a country, and how would noise pollution be coincident with air pollution? Overpopulation wouldn't count as they are measuring the same areas with the same population. Daytime population could be an issue (e.g. weekends vs weekdays) but I can't access the study.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interested - what would be causing the high lead levels in those areas, not that lead has been removed from petrol? Is it legacy contaminants or other ways that lead is released into the environment? I was warned off eating the food I grew in my garden in London as historically people threw their ash into their gardens, so the soil their can be pretty polluted.
Lead is still present in Avgas.
Someone always brings this into any discussion of lead as though we should all be outraged that lead isn't technically banned in all fuel.
Lead(Pb) in the air maybe?
For all those commenting on 'aren't more polluted areas just more criminal due to other factors", as far as I can tell the researchers examined crime rates for the same place and find correlation with whether there was more Ozone and PM 2,5 on a particular day or not. So they are not comparing clean air neighborhoods to highly polluted neighborhoods, but the same neighborhood on different days. https://www.sciencedai…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eating prison for also associated. Correlation does not equal causation.
"The researchers made no claims on the physiological, mechanistic relationship of how exposure to pollution leads someone to become more aggressive; their results only show a strong correlative relationship between such crimes and levels of air pollution. The researchers were careful to correct for other possible explanations, including weather, heat waves, precipitation, or more general, county-specific confounding…
more activity -> more pollution -> more crime
more activity -> more crime