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Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

#61

Post by lostmsu »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #42
thaumasiotes wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reducing their IQ by 2.5 to 3 points I seem to recall reading an article that observed that every time we do a study of the effect of lead exposure on IQ, it gets larger. IQs aren't changing much, but lead exposure is going down, and so we keep imputing the same IQ gaps to ever-smaller quantities of lead.

IQs aren't changing much Isn't IQ a comparative representation of one's standing within their contemporary age group? My understanding is that within a given group the median should be 100. So you won't see it change between groups. This is highly relevant when you're talking about different groups being exposed to different concentrations of lead. As an extreme example to make the point, if people born in 1970 were…

AFAIK, no, 100 IQ points at 25 and 18 or any other age are the same "brain power".

Re: Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

#65

Post by SMP-UX »

Roman lead pipes were not a significant factor on the health of humans back then... To the same extent as public sewers, bathing, hygiene rules etc. Rome had it a lot better than even some countries today. Yeah you still had to deal with infections and such which could have been deadly but time and medicine era that you were in you had way better health outcomes in Rome

Re: Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

#66

Post by SMP-UX »

peeters wrote: post #46

> Roman Empire’s use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds I'm not a fan of this phrasing. None of the findings had anything to do with measuring IQ levels in ancient Europe. They were about measuring historical levels of lead, which they then just plugged into modern models to presume some levels of cognitive effects. A study that was actually able to measure cognitive disparities and correlate them w…

This is one of the problems with modern academia. It's hard to extrapolate these things

Re: Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

#67

Post by guappa »

lostmsu wrote: post #61
trimethylpurine wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IQs aren't changing much Isn't IQ a comparative representation of one's standing within their contemporary age group? My understanding is that within a given group the median should be 100. So you won't see it change between groups. This is highly relevant when you're talking about different groups being exposed to different concentrations of lead. As an extreme example to make the point, if people born in 1970 were…

AFAIK, no, 100 IQ points at 25 and 18 or any other age are the same "brain power".

Not at all. There is different age groups.

Re: Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

#68

Post by ashoeafoot »

SMP-UX wrote: post #65

Roman lead pipes were not a significant factor on the health of humans back then... To the same extent as public sewers, bathing, hygiene rules etc. Rome had it a lot better than even some countries today. Yeah you still had to deal with infections and such which could have been deadly but time and medicine era that you were in you had way better health outcomes in Rome

Its more about lead kettles in which a sweet whine/ sugary additive was boiled down?

Re: Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

#69

Post by lifeisstillgood »

> A 2021 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US found blood levels in children aged one to five years fell from 15.2 to 0.83 micrograms per decilitre between the late 1970s and 2016 as leaded fuels were banned.

So if my generation had lead levels 3-4 X higher than Roman kids, does this explain the “Exams are getting easier” meme - that exams are staying the same, but kids really are getting smarter …

( also the hey exams were waaay harder in the Edwardian Era meme?)

Re: Roman Empire's use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds

#70

Post by gazchop »

SMP-UX wrote: post #66
peeters wrote: post #46

> Roman Empire’s use of lead lowered IQ levels across Europe, study finds I'm not a fan of this phrasing. None of the findings had anything to do with measuring IQ levels in ancient Europe. They were about measuring historical levels of lead, which they then just plugged into modern models to presume some levels of cognitive effects. A study that was actually able to measure cognitive disparities and correlate them w…

This is one of the problems with modern academia. It's hard to extrapolate these things

Oh it's really easy to extrapolate stuff. But perhaps they shouldn't. A lot of papers I've seen recently have wild romantic extrapolations based on cherry picked correlations.

Some of the social sciences are terrible at this. A former partner was a researcher in one of what I now consider to be less respectable fields and she would come up with a feely conclusion and fit the data to it and publish it. Wanted me to co-author one with her and do the statistical analysis. Told her I don't want to be on Retraction Watch.

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