You people need to go back to school...

[thistlechaser]

I'm torn between facepalming and wanting to shoot people. A story from Time: Eating candy as a child will make you into a criminal!

"Moore's analysis suggests a correlation: 69% of people who had been convicted of a violent act by age 34 reported eating candy almost every day as youngsters"

Correlation does not imply causation!

*pulls hair out*

Idiots! Gah! Look, I can do this "scientific research", too! Here are my findings: "100% of people who get cancer drank water at some point in their lives". Oh my god, water causes cancer!

Grrrrrrrrr.

Comments

[laurelwood.livejournal.com]

My whole extended family should be behind bars by this point.

CANDY: GATEWAY DRUG TO LIFE AS A FELON

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users. (http://www.blessed2bless.us/by-others/bread-statistics.html)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*dies and dies and dies* I was going to quote #2 here as the funniest thing ever, then I read #3... then #4, then #5...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Candy and bread! *points to comment below*

"More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users."

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I'll bet they all breathe air, too!

Also, please allow me this opportunity to point out the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha! *fist shakes* I'm going to send my senator a strongly worded letter about that! We need to get the word out! Think of the children!

...speaking of, when are you and your man going to have 94375725743 of them~? ;) :D

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

*snaps fingers*

That's what I needed to do on my way home from work today! Stop by the cloning facility!

[ani-mama.livejournal.com]

That is just awesome. XD

[citizenbleys.livejournal.com]

Correlation = causation is far from the most annoying-but-frequently-sighted logical fallacy. Sometimes I shave my head to remove the temptation to tear my hair out because of how often I encounter post hoc ergo propter hoc, which is not only a fallacy so well known it has a name, but one that has been thus known long enough that said name is in latin. It doesn't stop people from using it all of the time.

I usually respond with a combination of reductio ad absurdum and Godwin's Law.: "I had eggs for breakfast today. Seventy years prior to that, the Nazis invaded Poland. Therefore, my choice of breakfast was informed by the actions of Adolf Hitler. I must be a Nazi."

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Gah! I learned things in English class after all, I recognized post hoc ergo propter hoc. But then again, I guess that says something else if what I remember from English class is Latin...

[citizenbleys.livejournal.com]

Recognition of logical fallacies is a great boon when attempting to communicate in any language, English included, on account of the fact that such fallacies are an impediment to communication.

EDIT: And on the next day, it hits me that "correlation = causation" is a form of post hoc. Drat.

Candy-free's the way to be!

[mag.livejournal.com]

Ack, Thistle! Your post was misleading! I was about to say, "How ridiculous! That stat doesn't even imply correlation! The non-crime-committers probably also had a 69% candy-eating rate." But then I checked the article.

"69% of people who had been convicted of a violent act by age 34 reported eating candy almost every day as youngsters; 42% of people who had not been arrested for violent behavior reported the same. "Initially we thought this [effect] was probably due to something else," says Moore. "So we tried to control for parental permissiveness, economic status, whether the kids were urban or rural. But the result remained. We couldn't get rid of it.""

So, there was correlation. And they couldn't find any other correlating factors. That doesn't mean there isn't any, though, it just means the survey didn't screen for them. I mean, how about a genetic predisposition for impulsiveness? I doubt that was on the survey.

The article goes on to say, "It's possible that children who are given sweets too frequently never learn how to delay gratification — that is, they never develop enough patience to wait for things they want, leading to impulsivity in adulthood. It's also possible that children who are poorly behaved from the start tend to get more candy."

This seems to contradict the earlier part about there being no other correlating factors. It seems as if the children didn't develop patience because their parents gave them everything they wanted immediately, this should mean that there should be some correlation between parental style and future crime rate.

Anyway, tsk for quoting out of context! I mean, I'd be turned off of water if you said, "100% of cancer patients drink water... but only 50% of cancer-free people drink water." Water might not cause cancer in that case, but there certainly is a correlation. (Maybe those who live close to fresh water live close to an open nuclear waste dump.) But hurrah for finding a ridiculous article published in what should be a respected news magazine ripe for ridicule and picking apart!

Ugh, sorry for the triple post, why can't we edit comments?!