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Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

economist.com

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Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#151

Post by darawk »

KirinDave wrote: post #148
catalogia wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Kneejerk" skepticism is a good thing. The real problem is posting kneejerk incredulous comments before bothering to read all there is to read about the matter, since reading further would often clear up such concerns.

This kind of skepticism isn't actually skepticism. Its internalizing good arguments without understanding them, instead using the phrases associated with these legitimate concerns as magic words for social dominance and denialism. The typical "correlation doesn't imply causation" retort we see denialists level is a classic example of how people tend to use a phrase to avoid a reason-driven conversation about correlat…

I don't think most people are doing the thing you're implying they're doing. Nobody is trying to shut down the conversation. Most studies do an incredibly poor job of controlling for exogenous variables.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#152

Post by notJim »

catalogia wrote: post #132
blurbleblurble wrote: post #80

It's such a typical kneejerk "skeptical" reaction at this point to be like "oh well maybe correlation doesn't imply causation" as if there are no causal relationships ever in life itself. But really if the rationalists just took a few seconds to think about it maybe they'd find a some plausibility in the notion that exposure to harmful pollution could trigger a stress response; stress is intimately wrapped up with ag…

"Kneejerk" skepticism is a good thing. The real problem is posting kneejerk incredulous comments before bothering to read all there is to read about the matter, since reading further would often clear up such concerns.

I would argue that this kneejerk skepticism and incredulousness are actually two sides of the same coin. Neither demonstrates actual curiosity or desire to learn.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#153

Post by darawk »

KirinDave wrote: post #149
Seanzie wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For as long as journals refuse to publish negative results, researchers will scrounge for some type of positive result, even if it's causally questionable, because to do otherwise is to see years of work go for nought. Until these incentives change, the rest of us are right to be skeptical.

Skepticism is about inquiry, not denialism. You're not practicing skepticism if you make a decision that something is false. The point is to defer decision (or threshold your decision probabilisticly) on the evidence as it becomes available. Saying "no" to everything is no different than saying "yes" to everything from a logical perspective.

> Saying "no" to everything is no different than saying "yes" to everything from a logical perspective.

This is incorrect. The base rate of true findings when talking about causal models is extremely low. If you say "no" to every published finding, you will be right much more often than you're wrong.

Now, that doesn't mean you should say no to every published finding. But the idea that "yes" and "no" should be equally weighted in your priors across the board is an inaccurate representation of the state of research, and the underlying facts of the universe.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#154

Post by catalogia »

KirinDave wrote: post #148
catalogia wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Kneejerk" skepticism is a good thing. The real problem is posting kneejerk incredulous comments before bothering to read all there is to read about the matter, since reading further would often clear up such concerns.

This kind of skepticism isn't actually skepticism. Its internalizing good arguments without understanding them, instead using the phrases associated with these legitimate concerns as magic words for social dominance and denialism. The typical "correlation doesn't imply causation" retort we see denialists level is a classic example of how people tend to use a phrase to avoid a reason-driven conversation about correlat…

I think the term for this is "thought terminating cliche." There may be some of that in this thread, but reading those questions/concerns charitably I think most people are curious, but perhaps a bit too busy/lazy to read the article in full before raising their concerns. The trope that being wrong on the internet is the best way to get somebody serve you the truth on a silver platter may also be in play, though I'd expect to a lesser degree. ("I wonder if they controlled for X" -> "I'll accuse them of not controlling for X, so that somebody will tell me whether they did.")

I don't really think it's productive to pathologise people as "denialists". People probably don't think of themselves using that term, so using it allows people to disassociate the critique from their own personal behavior. I think it's more useful to recognize that some tendency towards low-brow responses exists in all of us to some degree (particularly on sites with tempting point/karma/ranking systems), and we should all strive to do better.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#155

Post by Nasrudith »

mjlee wrote: post #97
PeterStuer wrote: post #35

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…

Is there a word for the fallacy of believing that another professional didn't consider the factor you thought of in seconds? I see this all the time at meetup tech talks and it infuriates me!

It wouldn't be a formal fallacy in itself although certainly impolite. Perhaps like Slippery Slope.

It is related to arguement from ignorance and Dunning-Kreuger effect in that it often assumes their comprehended issues are the end of all problems and that the objections may already be implicitly handled. Listing everything explicitly in exhaustive detail technically addresses it but would be both inefficient and bad communication from how overloaded it would get.

That said assuming uncovered issues are implicitly covered is itself a fallacious inference. It may be dickish pedantry that is wrong based upon incomplete information but not illogical given what is known and communicated.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#156

Post by catalogia »

notJim wrote: post #152
catalogia wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Kneejerk" skepticism is a good thing. The real problem is posting kneejerk incredulous comments before bothering to read all there is to read about the matter, since reading further would often clear up such concerns.

I would argue that this kneejerk skepticism and incredulousness are actually two sides of the same coin. Neither demonstrates actual curiosity or desire to learn.

I don't think there is any conflict between skepticism and curiosity. I'm sure most of us have been curious and skeptical of something at the same time. I find that skepticism compliments curiosity, since unbridled enthusiasm can easily corrupt my perception of reality while my desire to perceive reality is derived from my innate curiosity. I aim to never stop learning, and to always remain skeptical. Failing the later, I will fail the former.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#157

Post by dwaltrip »

yachtman wrote: post #147
Seanzie wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For as long as journals refuse to publish negative results, researchers will scrounge for some type of positive result, even if it's causally questionable, because to do otherwise is to see years of work go for nought. Until these incentives change, the rest of us are right to be skeptical.

I dont see why journals can't publish more negative results. In math for example, its a big deal if someone disproves a hypothesis of someone famous.

A negative result means simply they didn't find compelling evidence for their hypothesis. Nothing is proven or disproven (although it adds weight to the idea that the hypothesis is not true), so people think it is unexciting. For that and other reasons, the system incentives not publishing these, which is a pretty big problem.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#158

Post by KirinDave »

darawk wrote: post #153
KirinDave wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skepticism is about inquiry, not denialism. You're not practicing skepticism if you make a decision that something is false. The point is to defer decision (or threshold your decision probabilisticly) on the evidence as it becomes available. Saying "no" to everything is no different than saying "yes" to everything from a logical perspective.

> Saying "no" to everything is no different than saying "yes" to everything from a logical perspective. This is incorrect. The base rate of true findings when talking about causal models is extremely low. If you say "no" to every published finding, you will be right much more often than you're wrong. Now, that doesn't mean you should say no to every published finding. But the idea that "yes" and "no" should be equall…

I agree with this, but we're not talking about equal weighting here. We are talking about absolute bias is towards no or yes without any inquiry.

The actual prior distribution of effective to ineffective models is extremely hard to infer from everyday life. We don't have access to unbiased data sources. That's why we should focus on inquiry rather than canned responses.

As an example of how this can be misleading common the average person sees only a tiny fraction of the proposed models that are much more likely to be valid because they've passed far enough along the process of publishing to have received some scrutiny and some credibility in the average case.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#159

Post by josephdviviano »

gwd wrote: post #135
josephdviviano wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to avoid this, just read the paper. I don't understand why technical people waste their time complaining about this stuff. We all have the acumen to read, understand, and debate research.

> I don't understand why technical people waste their time complaining about this stuff. We all have the acumen to read, understand, and debate research. But to be honest, the reason I read the comments (at least on a place like HN) is to get the key insight / failure without reading the article.

When scientists disagree among themselves, it's hard to use this strategy.

Re: Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime

#160

Post by cmoscoe »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #80

It's such a typical kneejerk "skeptical" reaction at this point to be like "oh well maybe correlation doesn't imply causation" as if there are no causal relationships ever in life itself. But really if the rationalists just took a few seconds to think about it maybe they'd find a some plausibility in the notion that exposure to harmful pollution could trigger a stress response; stress is intimately wrapped up with ag…

My knee-jerk reaction to this was to a find a confounding variable.

Maybe people get more violent when the weather is hot, which is also when we use the most energy? I know cops always complain about hot days.

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