'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#61

Post by dalke » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:50 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #45

rayiner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol isn't really that dangerous for babies either. The prevalence of fetal alcohol syndrome is less than 5% for babies of women who drink more than 14 drinks per week during pregnancy: http://www.motherisk.org/prof/updatesDetail.jsp?content_id=2... . There's very little evidence that low levels of alcohol consumption during pregnancy are bad for babies: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2023984,00.ht…

You're presenting facts, the "total abstinence" people don't like that. I find it funny how the "total abstinence" people come up with such amount of unproven facts, like "any consumption of alcohol" will cause harm. You'll be hard pressed to find a mother that hasn't consumed any alcohol whatsoever during pregnancy in Europe. This looks like it works as well as the "total abstinence" for sex works.

Can you really speak with such authority about all of Europe?

In Sweden, where I live, alcohol and pregnancy are not suppose to mix. For example, translating from http://www.vardguiden.se/Tema/Gravid/Livsstilsfragor/Alkohol... : "Since no one knows where the border lies, the recommendations in Sweden and many other countries are to not drink alcohol at all during pregnancy."

Or translating from http://www.lakartidningen.se/07engine.php?articleId=12235: "It's been known for a long time that alcohol consumption during pregnancy can damage the fetus, and most women also stop drinking alcohol when they discover that they are pregnant."

I'm lead to believe that the other Nordic countries are similar.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#62

Post by tome » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:52 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #34

calibraxis wrote: post #11

Science vs. hysterical racism, yet again. There's a reason it's "crack baby", and not "cocaine baby". Helps imprison the right sort of person. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act ) There's a much more dangerous drug than cocaine, for babies. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_cocaine_exposure ) It's alcohol, a legal drug. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome )

My dad worked in an environment heavily impacted by the crack epidemic. It was real, and the hysteria was based on the horrific situations that that existed. Smugly determining that "crack baby" was some racist code word cooked up to imprison black people is missing the point. Crack lowered the price point of cocaine dramatically, and was devastating to inner city communities. You should note who the study didn't loo…

Why is crack cheaper? Google and Wikipedia are quite unhelpful on this question.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#63

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:53 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #11

Science vs. hysterical racism, yet again. There's a reason it's "crack baby", and not "cocaine baby". Helps imprison the right sort of person. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act ) There's a much more dangerous drug than cocaine, for babies. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_cocaine_exposure ) It's alcohol, a legal drug. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome )

[deleted]

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#64

Post by Alex3917 » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:54 PM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #11

Science vs. hysterical racism, yet again. There's a reason it's "crack baby", and not "cocaine baby". Helps imprison the right sort of person. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Sentencing_Act ) There's a much more dangerous drug than cocaine, for babies. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_cocaine_exposure ) It's alcohol, a legal drug. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome )

Caffeine is actually much more dangerous for babies than either crack or alcohol. After caffeine the second highest drug-related risk factor may actually be not smoking weed; that is, mothers who don't smoke enough weed during pregnancy may have a much higher rate of infant mortality:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/100/1/79

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#65

Post by rtpg » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 2:57 PM UTC

bittired wrote: post #26

rtpg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure growing up in poverty can negatively influence access to mentally stimulating things. Not saying that the number on the bank account directly influences IQ, but tackling poverty would probably have ripples in the school system too.

This is going in a bad direction for sure now, but here is this thing: Some people, regardless of race, have lower intellectual capacity. That is what IQ tests try to measure, but fail to do completely because a lot is still based on education and experience that is difficult to factor out of the tests. A greater number of those people that have less intellectual capacity are not going to be as financially successful…

I get your point, I just don't think that "intellectual capacity" is really the limiting factor here. Education is a place where we really can make the pie bigger for everyone I think. And economics isn't zero-sum, we can at least try to make sure people can have 3 meals a day.

Also, I'm not completely convinced of the amount of importance of intellect by birth. But that's more of an opinion I hold, I have no evidence to back it up.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#66

Post by geoffw8 » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 3:00 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #62

Spooky23 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad worked in an environment heavily impacted by the crack epidemic. It was real, and the hysteria was based on the horrific situations that that existed. Smugly determining that "crack baby" was some racist code word cooked up to imprison black people is missing the point. Crack lowered the price point of cocaine dramatically, and was devastating to inner city communities. You should note who the study didn't loo…

Why is crack cheaper? Google and Wikipedia are quite unhelpful on this question.

I can't speak with any real authority, but I would suggest its down to the fact crack is cocaine mixed with further agents, allowing there to be a higher yield from the same amount of cocaine.

You'd have to also consider whether smoking the drug is more intense than sniffing, which would possibly compensate for the fact theres less cocaine.

Not a source per se, but some interesting info here on consumption methods: http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/deliv...

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#67

Post by bittired » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 3:01 PM UTC

antoko wrote: post #50

bittired wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is the logic: 1. Given all of the smartest 50% of the people in the world. 2. Take all of their money away. 3. Give it to the other 50%. Lets say we were able to do those three. Now do you think being poor causes lower IQ? DON'T CONFUSE CORRELATION WITH CAUSATION!

You don't seem like an idiot but all your comments in this thread seem to be making the same obvious error. "Being raised in poverty" is a broad term that means all kinds of things, you seem to think it is merely a measure of wealth. This myopic view is why you're so very very wrong.

IQ not intelligence. IQ is meant to be a measure of intellectual capacity. It is nonsensical to say that someone is unable to be intelligent because they are poor.

Let's talk about intelligence, though. Lets say that everyone had the same intellectual capacity, but we still saw the same descrepancy in how well they did on standardized tests. Having little to eat and poor schools do not keep a child from learning from others. There is ready access to the internet through libraries in the U.S. with a wealth of information online, and a lot of books on the shelves there also. If you take away all genetic factors (tendency towards aggression, lower intellectual capacity, etc.) and environmental factors (is the child worried about being shot, peer pressure to join a gang or get into drugs or alcohol, etc.), then in the end it is more about parenting and community, not about poverty. If we were able to teach good parenting skills, social skills, and ethics adequately in schools, and help them develop sense of community, then many of the problems (unrelated to genetics) related to intelligence being lower would go away. I hope if anyone takes home anything from what I'm saying, it is that you can't throw money at a problem like this. Welfare can make things much worse (misusing food funds for drugs, setting up a cycle of dependence on government funds, etc.), but welfare is a perfectly logical solution to lack of money. We made that mistake before, and can't have a whole new generation of people buying into that statist crap.

However, back to the study. Genetic problems with IQ cannot be solved by money, period. Also, being poor does not make you have lower potential for intelligence. That has been my point all over this thread.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#68

Post by acjohnson55 » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 3:03 PM UTC

tome wrote: post #62

Spooky23 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad worked in an environment heavily impacted by the crack epidemic. It was real, and the hysteria was based on the horrific situations that that existed. Smugly determining that "crack baby" was some racist code word cooked up to imprison black people is missing the point. Crack lowered the price point of cocaine dramatically, and was devastating to inner city communities. You should note who the study didn't loo…

Why is crack cheaper? Google and Wikipedia are quite unhelpful on this question.

For some anecdotal answers: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090531181900AA...

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#69

Post by salgernon » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #3

ctdonath wrote: post #2

tl;dr - "Poverty is a more powerful influence on the outcome of inner-city children than gestational exposure to cocaine."

"Poverty: Not even once."

Since many people might not get the reference, this is a reference to the 90s "crack, not even once" canned media message. Related: Nancy regan's "just say no to drugs" from the 80s. In America, these simplistic sound bites seem to be our attempt at universal healthcare.

Re: 'Crack baby' study ends with unexpected but clear result

#70

Post by acjohnson55 » Sun, Jul 21, 2013, 3:07 PM UTC

jdmitch wrote: post #6

Hurt's study enrolled only full-term babies so the possible effects of prematurity did not skew the results. Doesn't this mean that their selection sample effectively excluded any babies that had a noticeable physical reaction (other than having cocaine in their system) to the effect of their mothers' cocaine use?

Ideally, in an experimental design you want to control all but one variable. In real-life human studies, you can almost never do this exactly, but you try to approximate a true controlled experiment as much as possible. In this case, the independent variable is cocaine exposure, and full-term birth is a controlled variable.