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Comment by bobbyadamson | Hacker News Reader

> Chen said air pollution was most likely to be the cause of the loss of intelligence, rather than simply being a correlation.

Why? You can't just say that and expect people to trust you. The fact that they followed the same people may reduce the chances of certain DNA traits having an effect but how does that rule out other commonalities in environmental conditions. If you're in a polluted city it seems likely that you're in a large city. So do all the common traits of a large city also reduce your intelligence?

I want to read the study but I don't want to subscribe. If there is logical proof in the study that this is not simply a correlation, the guardian piece does not represent it.

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The Guardian is headquartered in London, which is a major polluted city, maybe the effects are becoming visible.

London is really not that polluted. It rains too much to be very polluted. AQI is currently 88 in the worst areas. In China many cities are often 150-200 range. India is off the charts, my friend who makes commercial air quality sensor arrays said most sensor tech maxes out way below ambient Indian levels and readings cannot therefore be trusted - nobody knows how bad it is.

http://aqicn.org/map/london/ http://aqicn.org/map/jiyuan http://aqicn.org/map/delhi

That’s vastly insufficient as far as empirical evidence is concerned. There are many things that coincide with pollution, which is what the commenter is saying. You need to demonstrate how you picked out pollution from everything comingled with it. That’s what’s being asked about here.

EDIT: Disregard this stuffy reply, my humor detector was off.

The response was tongue-in-cheek: the commenter implied that the article was insufficient due to the journalist being less intelligent due to living in a polluted city.

Hah, I see it now. Shame you had to spell that out for me :)

The Guardian paradox: if air pollution makes us dumber, how can those who live in air pollution make this discovery?

Polluted with bad opinions, worse politics and downright terrible journalism, just like every other large city on earth. ;)

Jokes aside, London isn't very polluted compared to a lot of large cities in the eastern hemisphere.

You make an excellent point. How do they rule out other leading causes of the loss of intelligence?

There have been studies that show high amounts of road traffic cause increased secretions of a certain enzyme into the frontal cortex, causing high levels of stress and increased memory loss.

"most likely" - the wording that you are trying to refute.

"logical proof" - your wording.

Your confusion stems from equating these two.

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