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Professor, ECA Dispute Video Game Aggression Study
Earlier this week, we discussed research which linked aggression in children with video games. The Entertainment Consumer Association responded with a statement criticizing the research, as did Christopher Ferguson, a professor at Texas A&M. PCWorld sat down with Ferguson for a more in-depth discussion of the flaws with the study. In addition to bringing up the correlation vs. causation fallacy, he notes:
"Even if you took it at face value, which I don't, video game violence overlaps somewhere between, based on their own statistics, a half a percent to two percent, with a variance in aggression. If you woke up tomorrow and you were half a percent more aggressive than you were today, would you notice that? It's just not much of an effect. If the author said look, there's a little effect here, maybe video games increase aggression a tiny bit, but it's not going to make anyone into a serial murderer, yeah, alright, we may argue a little bit over the methodology, though I'd still say they should've controlled for other stuff. "
Of course violent video games cause violence. I played GTA the other day, then I went out and stole a car, then I ran some people over, then I did some missions, got a rocket launcher and blew some stuff up, then I had 4 stars above my head and I knew I had some problems. The police came and killed me even though I totally loaded up an armor and life and all the weapons.
Fortunately I came back to life and appeared in front of the hospital, yet my sins felt strangely unforgiven.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I dont like what you say... Dont make me take mushrooms and jump on your head motherF#cker!
As with so many correlation is not causation issues, people who jump to use that line don't seem to understand it.
Correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Correlation DOES mean there is a link, though it may not be direct.
For example, playing violent games may not increase violent tendencies. People with violent tendencies may play violent games more by choice. Fine. That's a very reasonable alternative. But, either way, if little Johnny likes beating up virtual hookers sixteen hours a day, his parents might be wise to keep a close eye on him.
Correlation DOES mean there is a link
Not necessarily true.
Correlation merely means correlation.
Unless of course pirates absorb greenhouse gases
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Unless of course pirates absorb greenhouse gases [seanbonner.com]
... well, that's obviously not the only interpretation to walk away with there. Another would be that some of the same changes that drove piracy down, like using internal combustion engines to power boats that would then go faster, decreasing the efficiency of hijacking a boat on the open seas, also may have been putting out more greenhouse gasses.
Correlation does not mean DIRECT causation, but it's often hard to rule out indirect causation.
Anyway, his point was right. People here pull out that trite bit of fortune-cookie wisdom every time two things happen, even if an argument of causation is made. Stubbornly refusing to admit the possibility that A and B are at all related just because a direct link has not been shown is not very logical either.
In this case, people are quick to point out correlation does not mean causation maybe because they like videogames and don't want any possibility of seeing games blamed for any real problems and censored. I don't think denying the truth, if this is true, is the best way to guard against censorship. I think we need to continue to argue that the responsibility to control oneself is on the individual, if some kids become violent after playing games, the obvious solution would be to not let them play games. Barring that, lock them up or sedate them. I really don't care, but you're not taking my gaming options away just because of bad parents.
The correlation is due to the time dependence of the data. You'll always find a correlation between any two time series that increase or decrease over time.
In a sense, they do share an indirect causal link: the passage of time.
My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
No, he's right, and you're wrong. The "correlation" of sea pirates with greenhouse gases is there only because the statistical sample is too small to be significant, and because you choose to ignore previous periods with higher concentrations of CO2 that are not linked with sea pirates. In other words, there is no correlation between pirates and greenhouse gases: the statement is fraudulent, put forth only by people with no understanding whatsoever of science or logic.
This is the case: there is a 1:1 correlation of yapping about "correlation is not causation" as if it were a profound insight and being an idiot, and while the correlation is extremely strong, only a different idiot would claim the yapping is what causes idiocy. And vice versa: idiocy takes many forms, and not every kind is correlated with the "correlation is not causation" meme, so idiocy alone doesn't cause this intellectual failure.
With the introduction of steam ships, pirates began to have problems. They could not catch a steam ship in a wind-powered ship. If they switched to steam, they had big infrastructure dependencies (coal, engine maintenance, and so on) that made it easier for the authorities to find and kill them.
In short, the industrial shift towards combustion engines caused both the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the decline in piracy. Similarly, pre-existing violent tendencies might make someone favour violent games and committing assault.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
> Actually, there is a direct causal relationship between sea pirates and global warming. Sea piracy was made significantly less feasible by steam and later oil powered ships. A wind-driven pirate vessel made from wood could be beached anywhere with trees for repair and only had food as a requirement. Any small island could be a base of operations for pirates as long as they could send a boat ashore for food.
That is not a direct causal relationship. There may be a direct causal relationship between the use of faster ships using fuel that is relatively hard to obtain and the decrease of piracy, but global warming in itself has no effect on piracy (may not be entirely true: with higher temperatures, the north pole will melt and sea levels will rise, making the sea bigger, which could have an effect on piracy).
> Starting with Wolfenstein on my 386, and the usual collection of shooters from then on. I've never even broken my own nose before, let alone performed any act of aggression against any person.
Same for me, but that is irrelevant. Maybe you feel the need to speak up because the link videogames-violence does not apply to you (thus making you think it is bullshit), and the 1000 people who turned into crazy murderers after playing tetris are to embarrassed to speak up.
We're all biased :(
I am not seeing 'violence' resulting from video games in these articles but 'aggression'. Aggression and violence are different things. Violence can be caused using aggression but aggression can be as little as giving the middle finger in traffic with no violent result.
~ Ron Fitzgerald
Ferguson, particularly in part 2, does a nice job of pointing out the problems with the study. In addition to the obvious difficulties in drawing causal conclusions from correlational data, a key issue is whether the effects that they are claiming to observe have any practical (as opposed to statistical) significance. To what extent does a small increase in "aggression" translate into an increase in real-world violence? And how big an increase? This is a key issue, because it is undisputed that real-world violence rates have dropped even as games have become more violent and more realistic. Moreover, as Ferguson points out, there is no correlation between media violence and real violence when you compare different countries. None of this proves that the claimed violence-inducing effect of videogames is completely nonexistant--but it does prove that any such effect must be so small as to be overwhelmed by other social and demographic factors that influence violence.
have you read what it says?
from Part 1 of the interview:
all he plainly states is that this study found a correlation in their data. that is an indisputable mathematical observation. he's simply being an objective and open-minded researcher here. but he's arguing that even if you accept their premise (the correlation found in the data), their logic is unsound. so he is skeptical about their conclusion, which he is clearly refuting.
i think you should re-read the portion of interview in which he says that even an undergrad should understand correlation != causation. heck, re-read the entire thing, since you clearly missed his point:
i mean, you seriously need to work on your reading comprehension skills if what you took from the interview is that Christopher Ferguson thinks video games cause aggression.