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sen_no_ongakuA story about a possible link between television watching and autism.
The study is available for download.
The study is available for download.
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Date: 2006-10-17 03:04 am (UTC)Furthermore, it dismisses the twin experiments (and others) that, on the basis of substantial study, have as yet failed to find much of a causal link between developmental environment and incidence of occurrence.
It assumes, essentially, that "autism develops by the time a child is three years old". This is misstating the truth: that autism typically manifests by three years old. It is not known when it develops, but many people think it develops prenatally. The evidence (http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/10/16/autism.genes.reut/index.html) for it being genetic in nature (no, this does not disinclude the possibility of an environmental trigger) is far stronger. The behavioral differences between an autistic and nonautistic child could barely be noticed much before 2 anyway, because they're so heavily linked to their social function, and because the specific behaviors simply don't exist in children younger than that, so there is no basis for comparison.
If you read the study, you'll see that they basically pick something that grew rapidly in the 1980s and then assume that since television watching grew, and children that ended up autistic tended to behave differently in front of televisions (duh), that since the Amish (a genetically relatively nondiverse population) have low rates of autism, it must be because they don't watch television. They then introduce a correlation between weather conditions and autism rates, and subsequently admit that weather conditions may not actually affect total television watched. They never once mention, despite a number of mentions of whether pollution or other environmental factors might affect autism rates, that precipitation level itself might be a conveyor of some factor - think acid rain. This is just one of the myriad other conclusions they could have pursued, but didn't.
Then, in their finest hour, they mention "television exposure for [a previous study's] youngest age group is negatively related to the education level of the parents..." - without ever once mentioning the well-documented correlation with highly educated/intelligent parents.
So yes, it seems to me that they picked one factor out of a great many that rose during the 1980s (why not correlate it with rising crack use? That may go up when it rains, or be more particularly measurable in California, and it sure went up in the 1980s...) and ran with it because it seems to make a modicum of sense. They don't really go much further than demonstrating some correlation, and the amount of noise that they ignore far outweighs that which they included, in my admittedly-nonexpert opinion.
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Date: 2006-10-17 05:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 12:04 pm (UTC)Can there be any doubt that anonymous posters are less likely to say anything worthwhile?
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Date: 2006-10-17 05:06 pm (UTC)There is an imbalance of power in a communication between an identified and unidentified participant. It's like a conversation in which you can send a letter right to my mailbox and know that it will be received (if not necessarily read), but I have to respond via personals in the paper which anyone -- but not necessarily my intended recipient -- can read, and I can't verify that you'll receive my responses, let alone that you care anymore. You are inherently less invested in the exchange than I am.
Or maybe it's like conversing with someone from inside a locked room with a one-way mirror.
No, knowing a little bit of information about you won't alleviate that problem. But it would make me feel better.
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Date: 2006-10-17 04:59 pm (UTC)For example, the global warming issue. There is, of course, one side of it -- the global warming / pirate reduction correlation. And on the other side, one can also claim that the correlation between the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the resultant rise in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, and the rise of average global temperatures is just that -- a meaningless, cherry-picked correlation.
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Date: 2006-10-17 05:33 pm (UTC)well, when there's an implication of causation, isn't the burden of proof on those doing the implying?
also, while i agree that having someone anonymous debate you is unbalanced, i'd like to say that while most people assume anonymous commenters are lj members who simply don't want to be identified, they may simply be people who read their friends' lj posts and may not have an lj account themselves. not that you make this assumption yourself, but the anonymous poster could claim he or she is anyone at this point and there's no way for you to verify. of course the fact that s/he says it's not important to be identified does put it in the "i don't want to be identified" side rather than just the "i don't have an lj account" side. so, uh i guess, nevermind. ;)
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Date: 2006-10-17 06:38 pm (UTC)Yes, the burden of proof lies on the investigator, but it's a common thing for the convincee to respond, "I don't believe what you're trying to prove, so any proof you supply is invalid because correlation does not mean causation." If the convincee keeps moving the goalposts, the burden of proof becomes impossible to satisfy.
The problem is, I can always say, "Well, just because those two factors are correlated doesn't mean there's causality involved." Just because people tend to die when shot in the face doesn't mean shooting people in the face causes death. Just because mass extinctions happen to occur when humans move into an area doesn't mean that humans cause mass extinctions.
Just because monkeys and humans are genetically and physiologically similar and monkeys preceded humans temporally doesn't mean that humans evolved from monkeys.
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Date: 2006-10-17 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 08:28 pm (UTC)i actually find that mentioning "correlation does not necessarily equal causation" is refreshing when compared to the "heavy metal/role-playing games/video games _causes_ violent behaviour" and like tropes that permeate media reports. even this one, where the article title uses a slightly less forceful "might cause" (i do like that you used "a possible link" instead in your post) already colors the reader.
and just like there are dumb examples of "corrolation != causation" like being shot/dying or monkeys/humans, i think people have been besieged with more sensationalistic "corrolation != causation" examples which are not proven, like marijuana/gateway drug, or the above mentioned fill-in-the-blank/violent behavior, or people who break the speed limit had to first drive at or under the speed limit, thus driving at or under the speed limit causes speeding! ;)
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Date: 2006-10-17 08:29 pm (UTC)