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America's Real Criminal Element: Lead
2muchcoffeeman writes "The cause of the great increase in violent crime that started in the 1960s and peaked in the 1990s may have been isolated: lead. This leads directly to the reason for the sharp decline in violent crime since then: lead abatement programs and especially the ban of tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock agent in gasoline starting in 1996. There are three reasons why this makes sense. First, the statistics correlate almost perfectly. Second, it holds true worldwide with no exceptions. Every country studied has shown this same strong correlation between leaded gasoline and violent crime rates. Third, the chemistry and neuroscience of lead gives us good reason to believe the connection. Decades of research has shown that lead poisoning causes significant and probably irreversible damage to the brain. Not only does lead degrade cognitive abilities and lower intelligence, it also degrades a person's ability to make decisions by damaging areas of the brain responsible for emotional regulation, impulse control, attention, verbal reasoning, and mental flexibility. Another thing that stands out: if you overlay a map showing areas with higher incidence of violent crime with one showing lead contamination, there's a strikingly high correlation."
False Lead
And here I thought it was Roe v. Wade. http://www.freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
If you don't fill someone full of lead, they don't fill someone else full of lead?
I'm throwing this damned mechanical pencil away.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
I only consume unleaded ice cream. Am I still susceptible?
Depends if it's fluoridated or not. There's a reason I only drink rain water and grain alcohol, you know.
I am not a crackpot.
And didn't help lead to the downfall of Rome as well? I believe they had a lot of lead in their wine containers.
They had a lot of lead in their plumbing. (Which is a nice pun for the classically educated. ;-))
Ezekiel 23:20
You'll find slackers in most every group of people...
http://xkcd.com/552/
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'.
> There's a reason I only drink rain water and grain alcohol, you know.
You're a hick ?
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Except you've made a leap transforming beers to hammers. Your premise do not actually support your argument (which is obviously intentional) and you suggest it is similar his argument and then proceed to beat that strawman down. You follow up with a false dichotomy suggesting that either your argument is valid or his cannot be valid.
The problem is that his argument is supported by his premise where yours is not.
is leap is that lead is proven to cause people to become violent, therefore it is reasonable that the documented decline in known sources of lead poisoning could be related to a reduction in violence. This logically follows and his premise is supported.
Bullets are known to cause death. Therefore it is reasonable to suggest that the bullets I'm firing into the crowd might be responsible for the dead people in the crowd.
Cannabis is known to get you high. Therefore it is reasonable to suggest that the marijuana found in the stoned teenagers posession might have been what he used to get high.
Now lets try yours:
Bullets cause death. Knives cause death. Therefore bullets are made of knives.
Cats have claws. Dogs have claws. Therefore dogs are made of cats.
What a crock of sh*t! I grew up around lead, lead pipes in the house, lead paint, lead-acid batteries, etc. I haven't tried to kill anyone, and last I knew, I had a very high IQ (well, at least in HS, many, many years ago anyway), so this study is BS! We need lead in every day life. We need lead in solder, batteries, electronics, weights, etc. Lead is a very important metal, we can not do without it.
I am so sick of these environmentalist freaks, so sick.
So sick you wish to do them violent harm perhaps? :)
Whoosh...
Well, apart from the indoor plumbing, flush toilets, aquaducts, surgery, repair, public baths, enclosed sewage systems, roads and bridges, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Funny, but it is really for the environment not the target. Most bullets pass through and then end up in the ground eventually.
Where do you think the lead of the bullet came from?
The ground.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !