http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/07/AR2007070701073.html


its convincing, but there are also other causes...

I thought the book 'Freakonomics' put it all down to freely available abortions removing all the future miscreants from the population

the article points out the errors in the Freakonmics theory. Britain had legalized abortions earlier than the US, but it's violence didn't drop before the US's. It was however slower than US in getting the lead out, and when it did, voila, violence be gone.

It would be great if lead had such a great effect. As that change doesn't seem liekly to be reversed. One does wonder about immigrants and how much lead was in the paint/gas when they grew up.

I thought the real goal of Freakonomics was simply to challenge established norms and get people thinking about alternative causes?

high levels of lead? no joke. and steel, iron, depleted uranium ...

The goal of Freakonomics was to demonstrate that you can tease data to prove just about anything.

Indeed, on Reddit over the weekend the standard anti-religious bigotry was out in full force, including a lot of cheering for this comic-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thoughtlessly_yours/754075375/

Which made me laugh, given that it so hilariously misinterprets what the scientific method really is.

I thought this would be more about what $-- suggests.

I heard some investor (maybe Buffett) had currently made a bundle off of lead, which is peaking. I wondered vaguely if it was peaking because of all the bullets being used.