Candy really DOES rot your brain

[Flea]

Your mom was right! Too much candy leads to violent crime later in life.

"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." In other words, regardless of other environmental and lifestyle factors, like family-income level, parenting style or children's level of education, the data suggested it was only the frequency of confectionery consumption in childhood that strongly predicted adult violence.

Well, that explains a few things ... :toilclaw:

 

[girlbug2]

"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; 42% of people who had not been arrested for violent behavior reported the same."

WTF? That's not a correlation in my book- it doesn't make any sense.

Here's an alternate analysis of the findings: those people probably would have been violent anyway due to another, unknown cause. It just so happens that by the 1970s, candy consumption was increasingly common in our culture.

 

[CoryKS]

People love to think there's a reason behind every problem, and if they can just figure out the reason then they can fix the problem.

Here's the reason: Violent criminals have found a way to get what they want, and it works.

 

[Makalakumu]

Someone counted something and then did the math. The equations said they were correlated. So they are. This whole aspect of statistical analysis has always bugged me. I've taken a ton of statistics class, got myself a Masters degree, and I still am really uncomfortable with plug and chug science.

 

[Flea]

I would have to agree. The study has great potential as conversation fodder, however. I don't think it will make any friends among the 5-15yo demographic.

 

[MBuzzy]

That is the beauty or folly of statistics, it can say anything that the writer wants it to you, you just have to know how to manipulate the data.