Poverty does more damage to kids than crack

boing
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I guess thereā€™s always Rob Ford. Wealthy family and allegedly looooooooooves crack.

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Any relation between crack and poverty? Doya think?

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Not even that. Iā€™d interpret ā€œfewā€ to mean ā€œmore than none, but not a lot moreā€ - and they didnā€™t even find that. Direct from the article: ā€œThe researchers consistently found no significant differences between the cocaine-exposed children and the controls.ā€

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Now if we could get some more media attention on the effects of poverty on child development, that would be great. I know, I know, but ā€œbootstraps!ā€ however perhaps this might warrant some more intervention.

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Iā€™d submit that the two are related (no not completely related) and are the result of a larger problem. This article is a classic example supporting the ā€œcorrelation does not imply causationā€ rule.

These endless ā€œstudiesā€ are not solving anything. Why not study the true cause of poverty? Why not aim some studies and the poverty industry that keeps kids and families in a poverty cycle?

I theorize that the lack of family structure (kids with one-parent missing) and and entertainment industry glorifying the wrong things is a good place to start. Iā€™ll bet weā€™d find a lot of causation there.

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Cycle is the word. Happens fast too.

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Take one group of poor African-Americans and another similar group as a control. Do a study on effects of crack, come up (almost) empty. Kudos for publishing negative results.

Then try to leverage your results by comparing them to a non-control group and drawing conclusions based on ideology. Null hypothesis fail.
If the author wanted to test hypotheses specifically on the effects of poverty, she would have needed to start with a group that was more well-off but otherwise similar. Not just ā€˜everyone elseā€™.

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Yeah, itā€™s ridiculously flawed methodology and Popper would be spinning in his grave. Any reasonable scientist would use a time machine so they can add an extra control group to their >20 year study in order to comment on a strange resultā€¦

When your control group shows abnormal results, itā€™s reasonable to investigate the possible causes.

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But she didnā€™t decide to ā€˜investigate the possible causesā€™. She decided she knew them already, that is, she jumped to the conclusion that poverty was to blame.

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Ah this was what I was looking for:

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