Hacker News Reader

Comment by bardworx | Hacker News Reader

> Vastly reduced Lead levels to reduce violence

Can you expand on that statement?

Do you imply bullets (as in higher prices and gun control) when you refer to Lead or literally the reduction of the metal Lead in paint, etc.

And how is it linked to violence?

View on HN

There's been a lot of research lately on the connection between lead, brain impairment, and violence.

One quick example, claiming cities in the 1920s that switched to lead pipes saw ~25% increase in homicides vs those that didn't. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/jfeigenbaum/files/feigenbau...

Thanks. Will be interesting to read the paper.

Literal elemental lead.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure...

There's a hypothesis out there, pushed by a few researchers citing each other (including one Bell Curve fan), that environmental lead from leaded gas and such caused reduced IQ and greater criminality among urban residents.

It's not actually a remotely mainstream view among any sort of scientist. However, it has a lot of currency among left-of-center people uncomfortable with the legacy of urban renewal (aka "bulldoze functional poor neighborhoods and stuff everyone in a housing project, then be surprised that things go badly") and the race-baiting nature of "tough on crime" measures that both parties adopted.

The scale is debatable, but there is a lot more evidence for this than you might think. It's also a lot more than just gas, paint, water pipes, sodder, even fillings also made significant contributions.

IMO, scale is not that important as the preverbial straw that broke the camels back is important, but so are all the others that get to that point. A leaning disability on it's own might not lead to violence, but it does reduce people's options even further.

PS: Mercury was also known to have neuron toxic effects. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_hatter_disease. However, lead is more of an issue at developmental stages. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning

My point is that I'm not concerned about what I, you, or other laymen think about the science, here. I'm concerned about what the scientific community thinks. The scientific community does not accept the claimed social effects for lead. It's quite literally fringe science.

Appreciate your point of view. Another poster mentioned a paper by James J. Feigenbaum† and Christopher Muller‡. Are they some of the scientists you mentioned and labeled as "fringe", in regard to their point of view?

Clearly, violence in communities are multi-faceted topic that cannot be easily explained by something so simple as Lead. However, it might be a possible contributor.

That being said, I do agree with you that the tactics of destroying communities and creating housing projects was clearly a novel idea with terrible implementations and less then desirable outcomes. I work with a lot of folk from housing projects and I've met some really smart people who, without a life line[0], will never get out of poverty. It's a shame really - just by law of averages, politicians should realize that some of the housing projects are harboring brilliant individuals that will never be able to contribute to society within their full potential.

My network tech is from Gun Hill Road in The Bronx, which has an incredibly high crime rate but he can take an engine apart, then back together, within some impressive amount of time judge by Local246[1] (Mechanics Union in NYC). In reality, he really shouldn't be working in our company but in some swanky car modifications shop but they won't hire him based on many different factors. Really, a shame.

[0] - I'm implying that someone would have to hire them to let an individual prove themselves.

[1] - http://nyclocal246.org/

They are fringe, yes. The lead-crime hypothesis may eventually come to be accepted, but it isn't currently, and outside of the laymen pushing it, it doesn't have much traction. It's not enough to note lead's toxicity and thus, bang, a massive sociological trend is explained.

Yes, lead might be a contributing factor in the Boomer crime wave - it might be proven, one day. But the laymen pushing the hypothesis start out with this is THE explanation! and then retreat to you can't PROVE it doesn't have an effect!. This is classic behavior by supporters of psuedo-science.

Can you find any counter arguments other than just calling this fringe? I mean we did ban lead gas exit so presumably it was known to be harmful.

I accept it's not my specialty, but when you have a well known and reasonable method of action and supporting research it's a little harder to just dismiss.

The burden is on the claim, not on those pointing out that the claim isn't accepted.

Yea, no. That's not how science works, it's not a popularity contest. If you have both a reasonable method of action and can back it up with actual reasarch you become the default until actual evidence suggests otherwise.

Unless you mean that in the most narrow terms, as in literally just popularity.

Sorry, that's exactly how it works. You've pushing a claim. The claim needs proof. The burden is those pushing the claim, not the people pointing out that it isn't proven.

You might think that, but young post grads do a literature review not a survey. It might seem morbid, but science is often said to progress when the old guard dies off.

That's not to say it's going to win as the only explanation, just that it needs to be disproven not ignored.

Well, speaking as a completely non-representative sample (size 1) of the scientific community, I thought the evidence was fairly convincing - they looked at the different rates as a function of when lead was removed from petrol which varied considerably at the country level.

However I did also flag that they hadn't considered video gaming as an alternative possibility (but that's just a private hypothesis of mine). Certainly not fringe science though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com