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TV Really Might Cause Autism
Alien54 writes "Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3. The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state. They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not. They further found that in all the Western states, the more time toddlers spent in front of the television, the more likely they were to exhibit symptoms of autism disorders. The Cornell study represents a potential bombshell in the autism debate."
The MMR vaccine:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=249
The problem I am having with the way things are going, is that Autism is suggested to be a lifetime handicap, while the different kinds of people that are labeled "autistic" these days may well have a simple development delay -- which can be treated.
I, myself, am known to panic under stress, resulting in somewhat manic-depressive behaviour (I get intensely absorbed in whatever it is I am doing, or I show signs of depression) combined with tension problems. People are trying to see if the label fits me as we speak.
But whenever I go to the library to get information on Autism, I recognize so little about myself there. For instance, I am not rigid at all; I dislike talking about exact topics; I have a vivid imagination.
There may well be an interesting theoretical causality, but it doesn't help me much. I haven't had any advice or help whatsoever from the shrinks -- only tests, tests, tests, and more to come (it takes a very long time to check for autism) -- and the books on the subject don't help me manage myself.
Instead, I have learned a lot from reading about bipolar II, and managed, with much effort, to stabilize my mood so that I can think clearly again.
I insisted on intake that I learned about the underlying cause of my problems, so that I could learn to manage them, so you may say that I have caused my own problem. What frustrates me more, however, is that I have also had to solve it myself with so little help from the experts.
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
...and here we have another M.D. who thinks he knows something about science. I wish medical schools would concentrate less on memorization and more on critical thinking skills, especially with respect to statistical studies.
This is a spectacularly good example of really stupid statistical games.
In actuality, the paper is a good example of the way in which social research can take advantage of natural experiments.
I only skimmed it...
Then why write with such unwarranted authority and in such certain terms about its contents and conclusions?
Aside from the basic methodologic errors (confusing correlation with causation, adopting a highly questionable proxy indicator without validating it, and spending almost no time ruling out confounding factors or tainted data), there remain the dozens of smaller tactical problems...
They made none of the errors you list. I would like to think you might have realized this had you bothered (as I did) to actually read the paper, but based on the evidence of your post, I would be reckless to assume that.