Slashdot Mirror
Trace Levels of Lead Shown to Lower IQs
constantnormal writes "This government study explains a lot of things, from the American public's propensity to elect the worst candidates, to the decreasing fraction of students who bother to study the "hard" sciences, to the overwhelming power advertising holds over their apparently simple minds. I think it was all the leaded gasoline burned in this country prior to the 1970s.
Homer Simpson IS the archetypal American -- Thinking and Reasoning is just too doggoned difficult."
Homer Simpson IS the archetypal American -- Thinking and Reasoning is just too doggoned difficult."
Wahtz wit all dem dare beg werdz an stuf?
that there are trace amounts of lead in areas inhabited by large concentrations of Slashdot posters? ;>
The study says that lead levels are LINKED, slightly, to lower IQs. It says little about causation.
While the researchers do say on a few occasions, correctly, that lead is a toxin which may be affecting children, it appears as if they correctly realize that their study is correlative and cannot be directly linked, therefore, to causation.
All studies that deal with correlation cannot be linked to causation because the experimenters do not have direct control over the independant variable, nor can they tell which variable is independant in some cases. While the researchers did control for a variety of things in this experiment (The study followed 172 children in the Rochester, N.Y., area whose blood lead was assessed at 6, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months, and who were tested for IQ at both 3 and 5 years of age. The researchers controlled for many other factors that contribute to a child's intellectual functioning, such as birth weight, mother's intelligence, income, education, and amount of stimulation in the home)... it appears that they did not account for lead exposure by location - the first thing I might suggest.
For instance, suppose that equal income housing varies greatly in Rochester, NY, and that certain children are growing up in worse or older neighborhoods than others? These worse neighborhoods might have a higher lead exposure than others, which might cause the subsequent decline more than the lead.
Obviously, the children must be getting lead exposure from somewhere - have they accounted for school district (lead piping or building location of a particular school)?
It's not that I don't believe in the study, I'd just be hesitant to scream causality.
Maybe, just maybe, only stupid people eat paint.
You'll have that sometimes...
"This government study explains a lot of things, from the American public's propensity to elect the worst candidates..."
AHAH! Political conservatism explained.
The answer is simple. We need to make sure that everybody gets high levels of lead! They're clearly deficient in lead!
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"for America in this post.
They are subtle, but if you look close, you'll see them.
Watch out or we'll have to arrange to drop a little Freedom on you!
I say bah. I grew up in the '70's, I'm a pretty typical smart geek, and guess what? I was exposed to the same lead from pollution (or worse) than the kids today are.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Homer Simpson may be a stereotypical american but he isn't archetypical. Some of us can think, and some of us were born BEFORE Homer.
I travel to a large government laboratory on Long Island a few times a year to do experiments. Because of some problems in the past of things leaking into the ground water ALL water is tested quite extensively on a regular basis.
Turns out that because the plumbing on site is quite old, the copper fittings are starting to 'leak' lead. Lead is a component of copper.
Now all the dorm sinks have a sign that says:
If the water has not been run for 6 hours or more it is recommended that you run cold water for 2 minutes before cooking or drinking.
This is to flush the lead out of the standing water in the pipes. After six hours the lead has reached an unsafe level, by their standards.
Last August it recommended 30 seconds to a minute of running water before drinking. So, I guess the problem is getting worse.
I don't see why this wouldn't be the case with every building with old plumbing, so FYI: you may want to let it run for a bit before making that first pot of coffee.
Getting diabetes AND salmonella would be a bad weekend.
from the American public's propensity to elect the worst candidates
Even worse, they even re-elect them!
7 points down, that's about half the IQ difference between Blacks and Whites (avg. 85 and 100 respectively). It's interesting how an IQ test can be meaningless and racist, but still reflect minute quantities of harmful substances in the bloodstream. Reminds me of all those racist and sexist SAT math exams. I have yet to find a single objectionable math question, but the scores prove that it must be so...
Yes, yes, this will draw flames. I think some people might like to have a honest discussion about this though, so mod the flames down, and but keep your hands off of the 'flamebait' button in regards to this post. If you feel I'm wrong -- reply. (I shouldn't have to include this paragraph, but it goes to show how busted slashdot's moderation system is.)
This header is editorialism at it's worst. I'm sure constant doesn't have any axe to grind at all, and that this incindiery post is unintentional in every way, but nothing says "put me on your foes list" like a header that
#1:Insults an entire Continent,
#2:Insults said continents ability to comprehend politics/science, and
#3:Emphatically states that said continents inahbitants are unable to refuse the siren song of Madison avenue.
Ordinarily, I try to avoid vulgarity, trolling, and plain being offtopic, but F@!$ you too Constantnormal
And Michael, I'm not one of these cats that criticises you all the time, but damn. In this case, you might have wanted to think this one over before posting.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
No, the causation is well established.
The correlation in question has been known since the early 1960s and confirmed repeatedly in the medical literature. Because of this, lead was removed from the ingredients of paint and gasoline in the 1970s. The causation has been confirmed since at least the publication of this 1994 meta-analysis:
The important results from the new research cited in the article is that the threshold of activity is much lower than had previously been understood.
A small study on 172 people, somewhat exaggerated by the government article, turned into sensationistic, anti-american crap by constantnormal, and posted by Michael for some unknown reason.
This study is on 172 children. It's a tiny study. Repeat after me: Correlation does not mean causuation. This does not take into account a myriad of socioeconomic factors.
Where do you usually have more lead plumbing? In older neighborhoods. Who lives in older neighborhoods quite often?
Lower income people!
Without the educational/social oportunities of the better off, poorer children usually score worse on IQ tests. (This shows nothing about their intelligence.) Of course, there are many, many factors that determine how one will score with their IQ. You can't just pin it on lead just because the children in this small sample scored lower on IQ tests due to trace amounts of lead.
Anyway, I'd like to see a little better editing. Lots of things happen in science every day. Slashdot shouldn't bother with tripe like this.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
their apparently simple minds. I think it was all the leaded gasoline burned in this country prior to the 1970s. Obviously written by a geek with no people skills, born after the 1970's and not intelligent enough to live in a glass house and NOT through stones!
Will reduce your IQ to zero. Quickly.
to the decreasing fraction of students who bother to study the "hard" sciences
As someone who choose not to study the "hard" sciences because I thought they were easy and boring (no offense inteded to those who do, however) I am a little annoyed at the implication that social science is somehow better suited to stupid people.
If you bothered to study "soft" sciences you'd realize the degree of depth of understanding possible is far greater than is capable in science. The most interesting and intelligent people I know are Religion and Political science professors, and the most boring and unintelligent (outside their subject area) are professors of the "hard" sciences.
On topic, I guess at least we can be glad they don't allow leaded gas anymore, hopefully this will go away in a few generations.
There's no such thing as a popular vote for President.
There are popular votes in fifty states.
Journalists running around gathering up vote counts from fifty states, all collected by various means, and summing it up and calling it a 'popular vote' is irrelevant.
It's definite established fact that Algore lost the popular vote in his home state of Tennessee, though, which is quite unusual. And it's definite established fact that the Tennessee electoral vote would have elected him.
What is it about the guy that he can't even win the 'favorite son' vote from the people who know him best?
This is severely off-topic of course. Lead poisoning didn't contribute at all to the droning stupidity of Algore's campaign rants.
Urban kids will have higher lead levels and poorer schools - it may have to do more with economy of urban areas and property taxes/school financing than with lead poisonong. Rochester brighter kids live in suburbs, have affluen/more educated - motivated parents etc. Incidentaly, there is less lead in suburbs.
Europe is stil using leaded gasoline as frequently as unleaded - the catalysts did not realy caught on (it was poisoning the exhaust catalysts that was decisive in conversion from leaded to unleaded gas). I would like to see a similar study done in Europe - with different (more homegennnous) ethnic and social composition. *That* would be convincing argument.
If you try hard enough, you will find statistic correlation between colour of car and frequency of trafic accdents.
Lies, outrageous lies - and then there is statistics.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
But let's look at this just a bit further and see if there isn't something to it.
One point -- please don't confuse the United States with Canada and Mexico. Canada seems to do quite well when compared to us on a per capita basis, and Mexico is still growing out of being a third-world nation, and makes for a not really meaningful comparison to the US.
Your #1 gripe should read:
#1:Insults an entire country. Maybe an insult, maybe an observation. Probably an insult in my case, certainly an expression of the strongest disappointment, could well be an observation for others.
#2: One would normally supply examples refuting the statement, rather than just listing it and stating that it's wrong. Let me begin by offering up the opinion that while the military end of the war in Iraq was prosecuted brilliantly, the political end of it has been a miserable failure -- witness the predictable looting and collapse of social structure when the previous totalitarian iron grip was removed. Who loots hospitals, for God's sake? And why didn't we have a plan beyond winning the war? Is there any political action being taken to correct the economic malaise in this country? Shouldn't we be attending to this? Is anyone concerned about the Patriot Act doing what Al Qaeda could not, destroying the freedoms that have allowed the United States to become the strongest nation on Earth? These aren't the cries of the masses, the masses are happy as clams that we're able to kick a minor despot's butt and bomb third-world countries back into the stone age. Was there any value in severely damaging a web of diplomatic relationships it has taken a half-century to put together? As to the questions about America's ability to comprehend science, how well does this most powerful (and one of the most prosperous) nation on the planet score in such things as literacy, mathematical reasoning, etc? Why are high-tech jobs fleeing overseas (no, I haven't lost mine -- yet)? What about the long-term trend of declining SAT scores?
I think that there's PLENTY of empirical evidence that would indicate that the USofA, as a nation, is running a few bricks short of a load. I welcome your counter-examples of political/scientific brilliance on our part.
#3: How can you doubt this? Just look at the correlation between advertising dollars and where consumers spend their money.
Finally, if you look at where most tetraethyl lead and lead-based paint has been consumed over the past hundred years, maybe there is something to this. It's said that one of the reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire was their extensive plumbing system, using lead pipes. Maybe, just maybe, we are seeing some impact from our role as the world's largest consumer of virtually everything.
Personally, I'd like to be able to blame it on some external influence like lead exposure, as opposed to thinking that maybe our culture promoted stupidity as a virtue. BTW, where are the forms of entertainment (TV, cable, movies) that show a thinking protagonist solving complex problems? All I see is "reality" TV.
I believe that the thing that has allowed America to become the Greatest Nation on Earth is our society's freedom to, and penchant for, critically examining what's wrong in America and fixing it. If you are one of those "America - Love It or Leave It (exactly as it is)" people, then I guess I belong on your list of foes. So be it.
One point -- please don't confuse the United States with Canada and Mexico.
You referred to the U.S. as America. America is a continent. There are several governments upon this continent, one of which is the United States of America. My phrasing was quite precise.
As to your second complaint, what does your problem with current events in iraq have to do with lead poisoning? State your political views in a comment or article about politics. Would you write a header merging your displeasure with Iraq in an Astronomy article?
As far as your typical rant against capitalism and our suckering for Advertising, I don't know what you're talking about pal. I don't own a dell, and I don't connect via America online. Yet you included me in your sampling of northern, central, and south America.
Basically, here's my take. You want to generalize? You want to disparage those less wise then yourself? Fine. But post it on Fark, and keep it out of an article on lead poisoning. You want to draw some bizarre corrallary between lead products and lack of wisdom? Post it as a comment, not as the damn lede to the article.
*sigh*, sorry fellow science readers, all 10 of you, please rejoin your regularly scheduled analysis, nothing to see here.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
my parent's had me drink Amoco Silver as a child. Super clean means super smart!
BTW, where are the forms of entertainment (TV, cable, movies) that show a thinking protagonist solving complex problems? All I see is "reality" TV.
JOHN DOE!! Ha!
(for those that don't know, the tv show "John Doe" is about an amnesiac who woke up one day and pretty much knows everything except who he is. It's a pretty good show; he uses his massive intellect to help the police solve crimes, while trying to discover who he is. Ok, my summary does the show no justice whatsoever, but at least I enjoy watching it)
There is such a thing as a popular vote. It is just as well established that more Americans voted for Al Gore than George Bush (by a statistically, if not practically significant amount) It turns out that isn't how we elect the president. In fact, we by giving every state 2 + pop/1e6 votes, we aren't even trying to approximate a federal popular vote. Bush clearly won the election legitimately, but I still think the situation highlights one reason we need to change the say we elect officials.
I personally think we should replace the president with a nation wide popular vote with instant runoff/preferential voting, eliminate the senate, and replace it with nationally elected representative chosen by party affiliation. So, the Republicans would make a list of 100 people to run for Senate, and if 45% of americans voted to have the GOP represent them in the senate, the top 45 on the list would go to the Senate.
What a world we live in. People call the IQ tests racist because the black and white averages are different? They didn't bother to complain about the IQ test's as compared to some useful metric (that it doesn't predict success in school, or that it doesn't predict average income)?
I mean, the need to be a victim is *wildly* out of control. Yes, it's not impossible that the IQ tests were designed to produce lower scores for blacks. It's also quite possible that the average black score simply happens to be lower, and that the IQ *is* a useful metric of intellectual functioning.
If you want a fucking scale that ranks everyone the same, get a piece of paper and write "4" or something on it. Then get lots *more* pieces of paper and write "4" on them, and hand them out to people. Didn't feel like much, did it? Possibly because the scale was totally freaking useless in measuring anything in the real world. Just like the IQ test can be if you randomly slant it.
Readjusting the IQ test for the sole purpose of giving more PC results is the most inane thing I've heard of. The test may not be perfect -- but arguments should be made based on relationship to another worthy scale of merit, not on pure PC grounds.
May we never see th
This is certainly a side-effect of the cultural imperialism, superpower status, and now our abject military dominance.
Technically, America comprises two continents. I wouldn't be suprised if every other American country calls U.S.A. "America" and people here "Americans." That's just the way it is.
Oh wait, whiny liberals that's me. I wonder where we can get organically grown Lead.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
I don't know if it happened, but France and the UK were slated to eliminate leaded gasoline as recently as 2000. Italy is supposed to eliminate lead in gasoline in 2003. If you want to point to lead in gasoline making people stupid you should look toward Europe before the US.
No, I don't think this is the case. But I'm a little tired of the US always taking flak for being behind the times on everything, when the reality is we're quite a bit ahead on many issues. As an example, The US is ahead of many European countries on smoking. (I'm not familiar with the specifics of each country on smoking, so I can only speak in generalities). Maybe the anti-smoking movement has gone too far here, but my point is that European countries certainly aren't perfect.
Sorry, but I think the tone of the original article is just a bit too far in the realm of bashing US citizens. People are dumb all over the world, not just in the United States. No, I'm not a USA! USA! type, but neither am I an anti-American American.
AccountKiller
Paul: You eat a lot of paint chips when you were a kid?
Tommy: Ha ha ha, why?
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
The fact remains that you are either an idiot or a troll.
Equating lead pipes with foreign policy makes absolutely no sense.
There is a case to be made that the US is on the decline. The export of all non-food industry, the piss-poor quality of education are examples of alarming issues that nobody is addressing.
If you want to write about that, go ahead. But don't hide your agenda in a misleading article about plumbing.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Man I am sick of the self loathing/American bashing.
1. Leaded gas was available in the EU last time I went. I think that was in 95 or so. The US has pretty much lead the world in emission controls. As far as reasoning and thinking being "too hard" I think that is more a human conditon than an American one. Face it France and Russia opposed the war only because of there bank accounts. They where selling arms to Iraq. The US did try as hard as it could to avoid civilian deaths in Iraq. The people of Iraq will be better off than before. And Americans are no dumber than the people of any other nation and have the the chance if the want it to be better informed than just about anybody.
Deal with it.
80% of all the scientific articles in the WORLD are published by people either living in the U.S or studying here.
The U.S has the most universities in the world and the most prestigious/highest quality ones.
And..here's a causation vs. correlation difference for you...to illustrate the point.
People are not stupid if they disagree with you. I find that most protesters/ranters fail to see this.
Favorite
We don't contribute anything to science and technology. Well, not much. It's piddling. Just stuff the transistor, the microchip, the tv, the computer, the space shuttle, the Apollo program, the affordable car, the tech behind the internet, stealth aircraft, lasers, probes to the outer solar system, UNIX, AC, the Hubble telescope, the lightbulb, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, nuclear power, nuclear bombs, and a few other worthless little dodads.
Yeah, we suck.
Of course, we are the only ones in the world who have low IQs like this. No other country was ever stupid enough to use leaded gasoline prior to the 1970's or lead plumbing. Only we are that dumb.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I totally agree. Clinton was the worst thing for the USA since Carter. That whole thing with stock options? His admin's fault, for changing tax laws, forcing companies to "hide" their bonuses as stock, which only encouraged companies to fudge their numbers to improve the market values. He used his administration to nurture over-seas deals for political allies in companies like Enron and Global Crossing, then did his best for the last two years of his presidency to hide the fact that the country had slid into a recession.
Except there's one problem with your argument. Leaded gas has only recently, or just this year been fazed out for use in many European countries. France and the UK were supposed to have done it in 2000, and Italy is only slated to do it this year. If leaded gas makes people stupid, then you should look toward Europe for the largest effect.
Lead may have some effect, I don't dispute that. Your error is trying to make this into some sort of "this is why Americans are stupid" argument. I don't think anyone has even done any studies comparing IQ between the US and other developed countries. If someone has, I'd be interested in seeing them. You posted this in the science section, and we expect a little more than "boy, the people around me in the US are dumb, must be because of lead".
You aren't excused from saying biggoted things about Americans just because you are one. I think we're quite rightly offened at anyone that makes comparisons of Americans to Homer Simpson. This seems especially true when it's not just a matter of being a loudmouth, or saying brash things, or not being as educated about world affairs, but when you're saying Americans are just plain stupider than the rest of the world.
AccountKiller