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Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

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Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#31

Post by uup »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #24
hirundo wrote: post #16

If flouride indeed both strengthens teeth and bones and lowers IQ, it becomes even more challenging to pick an optimum level. I think that the more complex a question is, the more important it is for the answers to be decentralized so that we can experiment with many of them. If fluoride does have significant negative as well as positive effects, that's an argument toward removing it from water supplies and making it…

The “Nursery” water (sold at Walmart, Walgreens, etc) for mixing with formula has fluoride added to it. It’s nonsensical. Example: https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/d45b6df1-099b-4568-b2a9-5dd... What purpose does it serve? We can all get behind breastfeeding raising IQ ( https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736... ) but maybe it’s the fluoride in the formula lowering IQ.

No post body was provided.

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#32

Post by swayvil »

hirundo wrote: post #16

If flouride indeed both strengthens teeth and bones and lowers IQ, it becomes even more challenging to pick an optimum level. I think that the more complex a question is, the more important it is for the answers to be decentralized so that we can experiment with many of them. If fluoride does have significant negative as well as positive effects, that's an argument toward removing it from water supplies and making it…

I hear it induces passivity. Like lithium. That is clearly useful to a government.

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#33

Post by bell-cot »

Insert the obligatory USAF General Jack T. Ripper quote, about the Soviets fluoridating our water supplies, to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of American men. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove#Plot ]

(No, I am not a public health professional, to know if their study's design or other research would rule out paternal exposure to fluorine as a cause. However, I have a very strong impression that both public opinion and most medical professionals are strongly sexist about problems with pregnancy and young children - "anything wrong is the mother's fault".)

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#34

Post by User23 »

mjburgess wrote: post #9
User23 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no replication crisis in psychometry. It’s the highest quality area of psychological research, at least with respect to reproducibility. While there’s room for debate as to what exactly it is that’s being measured, there is none for whether something meaningful at all is being measured. IQ measurements have strong predictive power too for various outcomes, such as educational attainment. A civilization reduct…

Unfortunately little of what you've said is true. IQ only has predictive power at very low scores; above 100 it randomly correlates with, eg., wealth and various other extrinsic objective measures. The only cases where "success" is measured by the profession are circluar, ie., its often claimed Drs/lawyers etc have high IQs, but necessarily so, since they're all filtered based on IQ tests. Psychometry has nothing to…

For some reason some people just really hate the idea that intelligence is something that can be measured with some accuracy. You're just repeating their discredited arguments that have been reliably debunked for decades now.

In reality, intelligence is the single most selected for human trait and it correlates with, to a greater or lesser extent, being better at basically everything. In other words, it has many phenotypic consequences. That includes some pretty surprising things, like semen quality[1] and height[2]. And then there's the obvious stuff like higher IQ correlating with better performance in school and work[3]. It also correlates with higher income and lower criminality, but those effect sizes are smaller.

[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222683944_Intellige...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617178/

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_c...

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#35

Post by morsch »

mjburgess wrote: post #23
morsch wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're saying that lawyers and PhDs all have to score high on what's literally an IQ test, then I don't think that is true. You can become both without ever doing an IQ test, and as such there can be no filtering -- are those even routinely administered? However, to succeed at higher education (and to get into it), especially written tests, you need to be good at some stuff that also means you'll be decent at an I…

All law and medical schools i'm aware of require IQ tests for admission, they're often called "aptitude" or "admissions" tests

Yeah, that's not a thing here.

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#36

Post by mjburgess »

User23 wrote: post #34
mjburgess wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately little of what you've said is true. IQ only has predictive power at very low scores; above 100 it randomly correlates with, eg., wealth and various other extrinsic objective measures. The only cases where "success" is measured by the profession are circluar, ie., its often claimed Drs/lawyers etc have high IQs, but necessarily so, since they're all filtered based on IQ tests. Psychometry has nothing to…

For some reason some people just really hate the idea that intelligence is something that can be measured with some accuracy. You're just repeating their discredited arguments that have been reliably debunked for decades now. In reality, intelligence is the single most selected for human trait and it correlates with, to a greater or lesser extent, being better at basically everything. In other words, it has many phen…

The IQ test is a test, people good at taking tests are good at taking tests. This doesnt rise to the level of a theory of intelligence, nor evidence that IQ measures it.

A vast amount of "mere statistical" research is pseudoscience; entire fields. It requires a lot of experience in hard scientific methodology, and an actual education in statistics. A lot of experimental sciences attract people interested in the experiments who just plug data into models and report the results.

The vast majority of such "research" is pseudoscience, and it's one massive house of cards. Most "heritability" research, population genetics research, psychometrics, psychology, nutrition, etc. is pseudoscience.

The whole type of statistics that has basically been invented by the social sciences is the basis for massive amounts of pseudoscience. Factor analysis, propensity scores, correlation coefs, etc. -- it's just an analysis of correlation.

Such is the poverty of thinking in these "social sciecnes" that they arent trained enough to realise that a model of correlations in effects isnt a model of their causes, not even nearly so. And this is esp. sevre in the case of complex systems like humans and animals.

All of the methods of IQ research are simple models of correlations in quiz answers. They do not rise to the level of a theory of anything, and their use is routinely circular and unethical.

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#37

Post by User23 »

mjburgess wrote: post #36
User23 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason some people just really hate the idea that intelligence is something that can be measured with some accuracy. You're just repeating their discredited arguments that have been reliably debunked for decades now. In reality, intelligence is the single most selected for human trait and it correlates with, to a greater or lesser extent, being better at basically everything. In other words, it has many phen…

The IQ test is a test, people good at taking tests are good at taking tests. This doesnt rise to the level of a theory of intelligence, nor evidence that IQ measures it. A vast amount of "mere statistical" research is pseudoscience; entire fields. It requires a lot of experience in hard scientific methodology, and an actual education in statistics. A lot of experimental sciences attract people interested in the exper…

You're just repeating yourself and then making hand-waving attacks on scientists. This is the tier of "argument" we hear from anti-vaxxers. Surely you can do better than vague ad hominems implying either incompetence or malfeasance? Such claims require evidence.

Yes there is a replicability crisis in much of the social sciences. Yes cargo cult science[1] has been a real problem and continues to be. Nevertheless there isn't a replication problem for psychometry. Countless researchers have dedicated their careers to showing that there is, and yet they have all failed to do so. I agree though there is room for improvement. IQ is only a model and we're measuring a proxy for intelligence, not intelligence itself. Still, it's a pretty good proxy, just as grip strength is a pretty good proxy for overall physical strength.

There is also high quality replicable research in all those fields you disparage. For example, generally speaking, metabolic ward nutrition research is of high quality.

[1] http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.pdf

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#38

Post by thebigspacefuck »

wil421 wrote: post #30
thebigspacefuck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “Nursery” water (sold at Walmart, Walgreens, etc) for mixing with formula has fluoride added to it. It’s nonsensical. Example: https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/d45b6df1-099b-4568-b2a9-5dd... What purpose does it serve? We can all get behind breastfeeding raising IQ ( https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736... ) but maybe it’s the fluoride in the formula lowering IQ.

Those are supposed to have lower fluorine than tap water. According to the CDC, babies who only drink formula with tap water can develop dental fluorosis, faint white lines on the teeth.[1]. It’s not always possible to breastfeed. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/faqs/infant-formula.html

From your link it mentions to use water “without any fluoride added after purification treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires the label to indicate when fluoride is added.” The water I’m referring to is exactly the kind of water the CDC recommends against using, yet that is not at all obvious from the label. IIRC it is sold right next to the infant formula implying it should be used.

Again, what purpose does it serve? Babies and toddlers don’t have their adult teeth so it is irrelevant for dental health at that age.

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#39

Post by devmor »

ren_engineer wrote: post #17
devmor wrote: post #3

IQ scores? Really? Should we look at the correlation to phrenology reports and the subjects balance of humours as well?

IQ is the most strongly supported thing in the field of social science/psychology. Way more strongly supported than many of the concepts being used to steer government policy The irony being that tons of social science academics desperately want to prove IQ is bunk and become famous for it, but their failures just keep proving it's legitimacy. If only they tried so hard to disprove their own pet theories

IQ as a measurement of general intelligence has been repeatedly called into question and deligitimized with strong evidence by the fields of psychology and sociology for 30+ years for myriad reasons.

In fact, most of the continuing proponents for IQ testing take the stance of "We don't have anything better, so we will use it even if it's deeply flawed." This viewpoint is so prevalent that a majority of studies on the subject in the last 10-15 years are skewed towards evaluating alternative testing methods.

Here's a small sample of studies showing the different reasons IQ tests fail to measure intelligence:

1. [Fractionating Human Intelligence](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2012.06.022)

2. [Commentary on the pitfalls of IQ test standardization in multicultural settings](https://doi.org/10.1080/13854046.2016.1204011)

3. [What IQ tests really measure.](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.101.2.171)

4. [The Evils of the Use of IQ Tests ... In First and Second Language Learners](https://www.jstor.org/stable/20205010)

Re: Association Between Maternal Fluoride Exposure During Pregnancy and IQ Scores

#40

Post by mjburgess »

User23 wrote: post #37
mjburgess wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IQ test is a test, people good at taking tests are good at taking tests. This doesnt rise to the level of a theory of intelligence, nor evidence that IQ measures it. A vast amount of "mere statistical" research is pseudoscience; entire fields. It requires a lot of experience in hard scientific methodology, and an actual education in statistics. A lot of experimental sciences attract people interested in the exper…

You're just repeating yourself and then making hand-waving attacks on scientists. This is the tier of "argument" we hear from anti-vaxxers. Surely you can do better than vague ad hominems implying either incompetence or malfeasance? Such claims require evidence. Yes there is a replicability crisis in much of the social sciences. Yes cargo cult science[1] has been a real problem and continues to be. Nevertheless there…

There can't be a "replication" problem for IQ. There is no theory of intelligence provided, there are no independent valid and reliable measures of it, and there has been no work to show IQ measures it.

The argument is just, "I rekon intelligence has something to do with quizes like this, and look, there are correlations in people's answers!"

That's the premise of the entire field. It doesnt have a theory of intelligence, and any even plausible scientifically-grounded theory of intelligence would pretty clearly invalidate IQ as a measure of it.

HN isnt a place to give a lecture course on statistics, causal modelling and the scientific method. But the vast majority of people I'm aware of with serious work in those areas, regard this entire field as pseudoscience. It is only researchers within this field who believe otherwise, and they arent professionals.

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