Some say it was a decline in environmental lead, as the linked article does. Some say it was the advent of mandatory sentencing and three-strikes laws. Some say it was the easy availability of birth control and abortion, meaning fewer unwanted children were born.
But, social psychologists to the contrary, we will never know, because this kind of study can never ascend to the level of science. All we can be sure of is a rise in ... not crime, but contentless articles whose titles end in a question mark.
Antipositivism is a thing, like it or not. I've aways loved the quote from Heisenberg:
> The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that
> which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in
> silence. But can any one conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing
> that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we
> omitted all that is unclear we would probably be left with completely
> uninteresting and trivial tautologies.
Rejecting the entirety of a science because it deals in confidence values rather than "facts" is foolish; it might be better to judge works based on their quality, rather than some ranking that deems X to be a science and Y to be something other. I particularly love that you used the word "ascend"; I shan't be the first to compare positivism to scientism
> Rejecting the entirety of a science because it deals in confidence values rather than "facts" is foolish ...
I'm not rejecting pop psychology. I'm saying it's not science. Science requires something fundamental, it can be expressed in one word, and I invite the readers of this post to say what it is. As soon as the word leaves their mouths, they will realize why social psychology cannot be science.
When the physicists at the LHC observed what they thought might be the Higgs Boson, they refused to announce a discovery until the had a five sigma result. Five sigma is approximately equal to 2.8 * 10^-7 (explanation: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/17/...), and it expresses the probability that, if there is no Higgs particle, a random observation might create the observation that has been made.
Five sigma. That's science. Opinion articles whose titles end in question marks are not science. And I should not have to explain this to educated readers.
> I particularly love that you used the word "ascend"; I shan't be the first to compare positivism to scientism
Scientism is an irrational confidence in science as an answer to all the world's problems. Social psychology is an irrational confidence in the power of articles that observe correlations without either proposing or testing theories about those correlations to accurately represent some aspect of reality.
"science", to some, implies a discipline subject to the scientific method - none of this discussion is. Replace "science" with "discipline" in your post and it will make sense.
Nope. Still not seeing how "this kind of study can never ascend to the level of discipline (née science)" is something that can be stated without any supporting argument.
I was referring to "science" in your description of "Rejecting the entirety of a science because it deals in confidence values". It does not give confidence values. It is not science in the "scientific method" sense. It is a descriptive discipline, yes, and it can be useful - but it could be a random correlation, or correlated through a hidden variable. An observational study is, scientifically, not a valid way to establish cause and effect.
> Still not seeing how "this kind of study can never ascend to the level of discipline (née science)" is something that can be stated without any supporting argument.
If you understood the basics of science, you would know what's missing from an opinion article that picks a quantity at random and discovers a correlation with something else, but without a testable theory about how they might have something to do with each other.
Science requires something, that something can be expressed in s single word, and once that word is uttered, all who hear it will realize why this kind of article cannot represent science. And I am astonished by how few people know this requirement of scientific practice.
Science isn't the answer to the world's problems, but for certain problems, it has no meaningful substitute.
As a thought experiment, just imagine Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg, and Richard Feynman gathering their teams together in a room for a major announcement.
All three scientists have reached a unanimous conclusion. Each time they try to measure some aspect of an atom, their results are inconsistent! They declare to to their teams that this cannot be real science. After all, we need reliable measurements in order to do science. So let’s not waste our time any longer. Go home, get some rest, and come back tomorrow. And please take a moment to review the equations governing the path of flying baseballs. We think this merits a second look.
Fortunately history tells a different story.
By the way, I’d highly recommend reading the outstanding book “Quantum Mechanics: The Theoretical Minimum” by Leonard Susskind of Stanford. If you’ve seen a matrix before, then you’re good to go (with some effort). He walks you through the rest.
As a fair warning, try to mentally prepare yourself. Your seemingly rational & logical viewpoints, while admirable, will be shattered one by one. And you’ll see that even our precious boolean logic is merely an illusion.
EDIT: Oops. Wrong level. This reply was geared to downandout in above thread. Apologies.
What makes you say that this kind of study can never ascend to the level of science? This kind of study is science. It's imperfect, but all of science is; science is just a collection of tools to improve our knowledge of the world, coupled with the body of knowledge so gained. Some of those tools are stronger than others, or can provide more certainty.
Controlled studies in which you vary only one input to a system at a time, and observe the effect, are obviously a stronger tool than mere observational studies. But that doesn't make observational studies not science.
It's perfectly possible to determine which of these effects are more or less likely to be responsible; the different hypotheses that you make would make easily testable predictions, which can be tested independently because different jurisdictions have made these changes at different times. Lead was banned in different countries at vastly different times (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead). Likewise, three-strikes laws have been introduced at different times in different places, and many places have never introduced such laws (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law). Easy availability of birth control and abortion may be a little harder to quantify precisely, but that can be done too.
Since some countries have only banned leaded fuel in the past 10 years, within another 10 or 15 we should be able to say with considerably more certainty whether this has a causal relationship. If the crime data for countries which banned it later follow the same pattern, that's a very strong indication that the theory is correct.
I would find it hard to believe that the three strikes laws would have the same effect, as the reduction in crime has been happening fairly consistently nation-wide, while three strikes laws have been implemented at vastly different times in different states, or not at all. Lead levels are much more consistent nationwide, as those have mostly been national laws (with the exception of California banning leaded gasoline a few years earlier).
Anyhow, I strongly disagree that you can say that this isn't science. It's imperfect science; anything as complex as the social phenomenon of global crime levels is going to have a lot of complex, interacting factors and no one of them is going to be completely explanatory, and you are never going to be able to do significant studies with controlled inputs. But there are scientific tools for dealing with these somewhat more ambiguous situations, and we can and should apply them as the policy implications are quite substantial.
> What makes you say that this kind of study can never ascend to the level of science?
Because the uncontrolled nature of the observations means evidence cannot be reliably collected in a way that separates one cause from any number of unintended causes and side effects. The only way to get around these obstacles would be to feed one group of people doses of lead and compare them to another in a controlled setting, or isolate two groups of people, give one group the right to birth control and abortions, deny the other group those rights, and keep them from finding out about each other. Things that cannot be done for ethical reasons, and things that prevent social psychology from rising to the level of science.
This is why social psychology cannot be a science, and it explains why the field has the terrible reputation it has and deserves.
Quote: "Even before the Stapel case broke, a flurry of articles had begun appearing this fall that pointed to supposed systemic flaws in the way psychologists handle data. But one methodological expert, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, of the University of Amsterdam, added a sociological twist to the statistical debate: Psychology, he argued in a recent blog post and an interview, has become addicted to surprising, counterintuitive findings that catch the news media's eye, and that trend is warping the field."
> Anyhow, I strongly disagree that you can say that this isn't science.
Yes, I understand, but you haven't the slightest idea what makes science science. If you did, you would recognize this sort of article for what it is.
Social psychology deserves its reputation, science operates at a higher level, this is Science 101, and you have no idea what you're talking about. Not a clue.
There is a one-word summary of what science requires, that word is known to every qualified scientist, and you do not know what it is. How do I know this? You defended social psychology for over four hundred words without even mentioning it.
> Because the uncontrolled nature of the observations means evidence cannot be reliably collected in a way that separates one cause from any number of unintended causes and side effects. The only way to get around these obstacles would be to feed one group of people doses of lead and compare them to another in a controlled setting, or isolate two groups of people, give one group the right to birth control and abortions, deny the other group those rights, and keep them from finding out about each other.
Uh, no, statistical controls are a real tool of real science. While laboratory conditions are in some ways (ethics aside) ideal, they aren't a prerequisite for real science.
> Because the uncontrolled nature of the observations means evidence cannot be reliably collected in a way that separates one cause from any number of unintended causes and side effects.
If we couldn't scientifically deal with this scenario, we'd hardly do any science. The world is noisy, measures are inaccurate, life is not perfect, but we learn to deal with it. Not all science can be math theory. When it touches the real world, you have to deal with imperfection.
Quote: "The concern with falsifiability gained attention by way of philosopher of science Karl Popper's scientific epistemology "falsificationism". Popper stresses the problem of demarcation—distinguishing the scientific from the unscientific—and makes falsifiability the demarcation criterion, such that what is unfalsifiable is classified as unscientific, and the practice of declaring an unfalsifiable theory to be scientifically true is pseudoscience."
Which part of the above didn't you understand?
> When it touches the real world, you have to deal with imperfection.
No need to be rude - you have come to an invalid conclusion here, and it would be better to try to understand why than yell at others.
So, what about this research is not falsifiable?
For example, if research finds another location in which lead additives were not banned, but in which crime declined with the same characteristics as the drop being ascribed to the ban on lead in other countries, that's strong evidence that the theory is indeed false.
It's time to offer evidence, not opinion. My claim (and that of scientific philosophers) is that falsifiability is requires for science. That is not a point that's open to debate, it is an established requirement. It's even written into the law, for example laws that prevent Creationism from being presented as science in public school science classrooms:
Quote: "The judgment defined the essential characteristics of science as being:
* It is guided by natural law;
* It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
* It is testable against the empirical world;
* Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and
* It is falsifiable."
> So, what about this research is not falsifiable?
Try to imagine how someone could prove false the claim that a reduction of lead in gasoline caused a reduction in the crime rate, to the exclusion of other factors, in a social setting, with no meaningful controls in place.
> In other words, your point is entirely incorrect.
You need to make an argument before coming to a conclusion. At least, that's the rule in a scientific debate.
Try to imagine how someone could prove false the claim that a reduction of lead in gasoline caused a reduction in the crime rate, to the exclusion of other factors, in a social setting, with no meaningful controls in place.
I literally gave you an example of this already, and you've ignored it. I can only assume you're responding in bad faith.
>> Try to imagine how someone could prove false the claim that a reduction of lead in gasoline caused a reduction in the crime rate, to the exclusion of other factors, in a social setting, with no meaningful controls in place.
> I literally gave you an example of this already, and you've ignored it.
You're ignoring the requirement to "prove false". Your example doesn't meet this criterion, and the criterion is required for science. Here's your example:
"For example, if research finds another location in which lead additives were not banned, but in which crime declined with the same characteristics as the drop being ascribed to the ban on lead in other countries, that's strong evidence that the theory is indeed false."
No, that's not "strong evidence", it merely introduces another confounding factor, and it is not remotely a basis for falsification. It's not a black swan.
Unless you are claiming that all observational science is, in fact, not science, then this idea is intractable.
For example - cosmology. We can observe the universe. We can't create any meaningful controls when we do so, but we can use the observed data to construct models. If those models fit our observations, then they are accepted. If we find a situation in which the model does not correctly describe a system (i.e. it has been falsified), then we can modify it, or discard it entirely.
One can adopt entirely the same process to research the effects of lead. We can observe that, based on available data, a certain phenomenon occurred. We can use other sources of information to compensate for other possible causes. If there is information available which contradicts that conclusion, then we can discard the model. Like other scientific disciplines, there is never 100% certainty about the validity of a model, however if adequate contradicting evidence can be shown, then it will be shown invalid.
The "black swan" is a simplistic view of falsifiability. When presented with this swan, one can respond "Ah, you are correct. This is a swan, and it is black; my model for swan coloration is invalid." One could also legitimately respond "Ah, you are not correct; this swan is white, and has been exposed to dye which has made it appear to be black." That is to say that falsification is never absolute, and all observations are subject to confounding factors.
Real science rarely falls into clean classification of certainty and uncertainty; there are always confounding factors, and the model of lead's effect on crime is not qualitatively different.
Try to imagine how you would prove false the claim, in a social setting, with multiple factors at work, and no meaningful controls. If I shake a dried gourd over a cold sufferer and he gets better, I can claim to have been the cause of the recovery. And guess what? No one can prove that claim false. The fact the colds are really caused by germs is true and interesting, but it doesn't falsify my claim to have been the cause of the recovery. That's why scientific claims requires a basis for falsification.
And this is more than a philosophical position, it's written into the law:
Quote: "The judgment defined the essential characteristics of science as being:
* It is guided by natural law;
* It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
* It is testable against the empirical world;
* Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and
* It is falsifiable."
>If I shake a dried gourd over a cold sufferer and he gets better, I can claim to have been the cause of the recovery. And guess what? No one can prove that claim false.
Umm, sure they can? They repeat the experiment (or perform a better one) and don't get the same results. Lack of controls makes for weaker evidence, but it doesn't magically make things unfalsifiable.
And so I ask you again: What makes you say these studies are unfalsifiable?
> Umm, sure they can? They repeat the experiment (or perform a better one) and don't get the same results. Lack of controls makes for weaker evidence, but it doesn't magically make things unfalsifiable.
Yes, in fact, that's exactly what it does. My dried gourd example should have demonstrated why this is so -- I can always claim a correlation with the gourd and the outcome, and without proper experimental controls, that's irrefutable.
My dried gourd example is meant to show the need for experimental controls -- another group that recovers in the same amount of time without benefit of gourd-shaking undermines the claim that the gourd had anything to do with the outcome. But "undermines" doesn't equal "falsified" -- the latter condition requires that we test an explanation, not just an observation.
The method of performing more experiments, gathering more data, decreases the p-value of the outcome, but it cannot turn a hypothesis into a theory until we're testing an explanation rather than measuring an effect. As long as we measure effects without trying to explain them, we're doing an expensive kind of accounting, but not science. Science requires that we try to offer and then test an explanation for what's being observed, and toss the explanations that don't pan out.
The tl;dr: science requires theories.
> And so I ask you again: What makes you say these studies are unfalsifiable?
I thought this argument sounded familiar, and looking at my comment history confirms it. I argued with you about the necessity of an explanation for something to be scientific previously. Clearly you feel strongly about this issue, so I'll make a better attempt to understand your argument this time.
Can you clarify for me exactly what you mean by an "explanation"? The linked article starts to talk about a difference between description and explanation, but then just arbitrarily says that Newton's theory of gravity constitutes an explanation. I don't see how Newton's theory is anything more than a very detailed description.
Why is the hypothesis "There's a magic force called gravity that behaves according to these laws." any more valid than the hypothesis "Stuff falls because magic." Both provide testable predictions, and can be falsified. Indeed one could simply point to the moon and say "that doesn't fall, theory disproven" just as one could point to the unusual orbits, and disprove Newton. I don't see how that makes the hypothesis itself unscientific.
You could I guess define Science as only applying to areas where you can do controlled experiments - but you would thereby eliminate all observational sciences - evolutionary biology, astrophysics, cosmology, etc.
I suspect most people would find that a somewhat extreme position.
Also, fraud is an issue in all fields of Science, so that seems somewhat an unfair issue to introduce.
> but you would thereby eliminate all observational sciences - evolutionary biology, astrophysics, cosmology, etc.
No. Not if an observation leads to a testable, falsifiable theory, if that theory makes new predictions, if the predictions are verified, and if the theory in all its manifestations remains potentially falsifiable by new evidence. Like quantum theory, the best scientific theory we have, a theory that makes many other fields look like stamp collecting, and a theory that relies on observations of real-world phenomena.
As to cosmology, there are a number of cosmological theories based on observation that have led to testable theories, and those theories have survived reality-testing and have made predictions that are later verified in observations, like the recent observations of the CMB that support inflationary theory and led to some recent Nobel Prizes.
> I suspect most people would find that a somewhat extreme position.
Science is not a popularity contest, and it is not politics.
> Also, fraud is an issue in all fields of Science, so that seems somewhat an unfair issue to introduce.
Many people don't understand that some pseudoscientific fields are all fraud, in which case arguing that all fields have some fraud misses the point.
The hypothesis that lead exposure affects early childhood development, and that this leads to higher crime rates does lead to testable predictions - it predicts, for example, that different regions that removed lead at different times would see crime rates drop at different times. And indeed, this is exactly what we see. Is this as strong as exposing a test population and comparing it to a control? No. But neither is it meaningless pseudo-science.
This line of argument is actually very similar to the cosmological example - the theory makes a prediction about something you should observe, if the theory is correct. However, this is still much weaker proof than being able to generate a Big Bang in the lab and examine the outcome.
The QM case is an example of how much more powerful it is in fields where we can do controlled experiments, I agree. But not everything worth investigating (and worth knowing) is amenable to that type of study.
> The hypothesis that lead exposure affects early childhood development, and that this leads to higher crime rates does lead to testable predictions ...
Yes, but not falsifiability, required for science. Okay, I see people aren't getting this, so here's a classic example. Let's say I am a doctor who believes he has found a cure for the common cold. My cure is to shake a dried gourd over the cold sufferer until he gets better. The cure might take a week, but it always works. My method is repeatable and perfectly reliable, and I've published my cure in a refereed scientific journal (there are now any number of phony refereed scientific journals). And, because (in this thought experiment) science can get along without defining theories, without falsifiability, I'm under no obligation to try to explain my cure, or consider alternative explanations for my breakthrough — I only have to describe it, just as lead in gasoline is being described as inversely correlated with crime rates in the linked article.
> Is this as strong as exposing a test population and comparing it to a control? No. But neither is it meaningless pseudo-science.
But that is exactly what it is -- meaningless pseudoscience -- on the ground that no one is crafting and then testing theories about the correlation. Until we know why A is correlated with B, until we can demonstrate a cause-effect relationship and make falsifiable predictions based on the theory, it's not science.
> But not everything worth investigating (and worth knowing) is amenable to that type of study.
Yes, I agree, science can't provide answers to questions not amenable to the scientific method (i.e. "that type of study"), and not all important questions have this property.
Well in the case of lead wouldn't the prediction be: a jurisdiction that removes lead from its petroleum products will experience a significant decrease in crime rates about 20 years later?
Not without a testable, falsifiable explanation. Observations (i.e. descriptions) can't be falsified, that's reserved for explanations. If I say, "the night sky is filled with little points of light", that's hardly falsifiable. But if I say, "those points of light are actually thermonuclear furnaces like our sun, but at greater distances", that claim is open to meaningful test and possible falsification.
Here's why a testable, falsifiable theory is required for science. Let's say I'm a doctor and I've created a revolutionary cure for the common cold. My cure is to shake a dried gourd over the cold sufferer until he gets better. The cure might take a week, but it always works. My method is repeatable and perfectly reliable, and I've published my cure in a refereed scientific journal (there are now any number of phony refereed scientific journals). And, because (in this thought experiment) science can get along without defining, falsifiable theories, I'm under no obligation to try to explain my cure, or consider alternative explanations for my breakthrough — I only have to describe it, just as the linked article describes the correlation between lead in gasoline and the crime rate.
Because I've cured the common cold, and because I've met all the requirements that social psychology recognizes for science, I deserve a Nobel Prize. Yes or no?
The only way to get around these obstacles would be to
feed one group of people doses of lead and compare them to
another in a controlled setting, or isolate two groups of
people, give one group the right to birth control and
abortions, deny the other group those rights, and keep
them from finding out about each other. Things that cannot
be done for ethical reasons, and things that prevent
social psychology from rising to the level of science.
And yet in another comment, you say that cosmology, which has the same problem with not being able to vary the inputs and observe the effects on the outputs, is a real science. Why? Because it offers falsifiable hypotheses; you can make a prediction based on certain data, then test that prediction against other data.
The exact same is true of this topic. As I pointed out in my comment above, in portions that you conveniently ignored, there are strong predictions that this research makes, which can be tested. The original paper on this topic was written in 1999, and there is already 15 years worth of additional data since then; the next 10 to 15 years will provide even more data, which could falsify or could be consistent with this hypothesis.
This is why social psychology cannot be a science, and it
explains why the field has the terrible reputation it has
and deserves.
I don't know why you bring up social psychology, as this study is not social psychology. It's more environmental sociology. Social psychology is the study of how people's behavior is related to their beliefs and attitudes about other people. This study is about how chronic, population wide lead poisoning relates to criminal behavior.
And while I share your skepticism about social psychology, the mere presence of corrupting influences such as the ones you mention, the desire for snappy, headline-ready results, does not mean that an entire field is devoid of value or not science. There are other fields, such as pharmacology, which likewise have troubling corrupting influences, and yet can also be real science that produce real value.
Anyhow, we've diverged pretty far from the original topic, as the original topic is not even within the field of social psychology.
you haven't the slightest idea what makes science science.
you have no idea what you're talking about. Not a clue
you do not know what it is. How do I know this? You
defended social psychology for over four hundred words
without even mentioning it.
Please refrain from the ad-hominem attacks. They bring the level of the discussion down considerably.
I do not mention social psychology because this research is not social psychology.
This research is founded on well known, rigorous research on the effects of lead poisoning.[1] This is not some surprising, out-of-left-field result which came out of the blue from some small study on a handful of college undergrads, which is the problem with many psychological and social psychology findings; this is based on building on many years of research and meta-analysis of epidemiological research. The original paper on this topic[2] was written in 1999, follow up papers from other authors have been published in 2007[3].
There have been further studies confirming this effect; this 2008 paper in PLOS Medicine[4] measured prenatal blood lead levels in pregnant mothers, childhood lead levels, and later correlated that with arrest rates. They too found a strong correlation. Other studies on the same cohort have shown a strong correlation between blood lead levels and reduced brain mass[5].
Here's a paper that compares several of the hypotheses that you have brought up[6]. Now, I take this paper with a large grain of salt, because it clearly comes from a biased source, the Heartland Institute, which is clearly biased towards libertarian findings; and the point of the paper is to argue against drug prohibition, or excessive enforcement of it (I am sympathetic to that viewpoint, but view their research on the topic with a heavy dose of skepticism). However, they compared several of the proposed determinants of violent crime rates, such as incarceration rates, access to legal abortion, environmental lead, and so on, and the only one of them (outside of the one that they're obviously promoting, drug prohibition) which held up with a consistent correlation was environmental lead.
No, this is false. Try to imagine a conclusive falsification of the claim that's being made in the linked article. Falsification doesn't mean casting doubt on a hypothesis, it means proving it wrong. In fields such as the one under discussion, with p-values typically in the range 0.01 to 0.05, nothing is ever falsified. Some ideas are abandoned through embarrassment, but none of them are ever falsified.
If I say all swans are white, someone can falsify my claim by locating a black swan. If i say that a reduction in the crime rate might have a cause-effect relationship with a reduction in the lead content of gasoline, that's a perfect article for social psychology, because it's not possible to argue against it in a scientific sense.
> Please refrain from the ad-hominem attacks.
My posts aren't being downvoted because of their tone, they're being downvoted because my position is correct and it makes people uncomfortable to hear that so much of modern science ... isn't science.
> the only one of them (outside of the one that they're obviously promoting, drug prohibition) which held up with a consistent correlation was environmental lead. [emphasis added]
I shouldn't have to say this, but correlation, however consistent, doesn't equal causation, and causation -- testable, falsifiable theories -- is the foundation on which science is built.
Ask yourself why Creationism isn't taught in public school science classrooms. This is so because Creationism isn't science. That, in turn, was established in a trial -- several, actually -- in which the court's decision was based on the fact that science was shown to require falsifiability, not mere argument. Here's one such court ruling:
Quote: "The judgment defined the essential characteristics of science as being:
* It is guided by natural law;
* It has to be explanatory by reference to natural law;
* It is testable against the empirical world;
* Its conclusions are tentative, i.e. are not necessarily the final word; and
* It is falsifiable."
Think about this. If your position were accurate, the Creationists would have the right to present Creationism -- argument without falsifiability -- as science in public schools.
No, this is false. Try to imagine a conclusive
falsification of the claim that's being made in the
linked article. Falsification doesn't mean casting doubt
on a hypothesis, it means proving it wrong. In fields
such as the one under discussion, with p-values typically
in the range 0.01 to 0.05, nothing is ever falsified.
Some ideas are abandoned through embarrassment, but none
of them are ever falsified.
Are you trying to say that the only work that can ever be falsified is that which is black and white, cut and dried, you will just be able to pull a counter example out an someone will go home in shame because their pet theory was disproven?
That's not how the majority of science works. The majority of science is statistical, and noisy, with lots of confounding variables. That doesn't mean that it's not falsifiable; just that it's messy, it doesn't follow some neat perfect model of how science is supposed to work.
This topic, whether environmental lead leads to increased crime, absolutely is falsifiable, just as falsifiable as the laws of thermodynamics, which are likewise statistical in nature. Now, the laws of thermodynamics are a lot easier to test, and you can get much bigger sample sizes much more easily; but that doesn't have any bearing on whether a theory is falsifiable, just how easy the process is.
Lack of falsifiability means that a theory makes no predictions. It means that there is no way to distinguish a world in which the theory is true, from one in which it is not.
If i say that a reduction in the crime rate might have a
cause-effect relationship with a reduction in the lead
content of gasoline, that's a perfect article for social
psychology, because it's not possible to argue against it
in a scientific sense.
Of course it's possible. You would just need to show sufficient evidences of cases of long term, widespread (population wide for a large enough population) increases in environmental lead where the crime rate did not increase 20 years later, or likewise widespread decreases in environmental lead where it did not decrease 20 years later. If you managed to come up with enough data of that sort, without having selectively chosen the data solely for that purpose (or with some other biased methodology that caused you to prefer data that prefers one result over another), that would be a falsification.
Other possible falsifications would be to test blood lead levels on a controlled population, and then observe that population's tendency towards criminal activity. If environmental lead were strongly correlated, but blood lead levels were not, then that might indicate that the causation was not ingested lead, but some other variable that was predicting both, such as industrial activity or development levels.
My posts aren't being downvoted because of their tone,
they're being downvoted because my position is correct and
it makes people uncomfortable to hear that so much of
modern science ... isn't science.
There is a lot of modern science that is flawed. On the other hand, there is a lot of science from any era that is flawed. Pseudo-science has existed as long, if not longer, than science. No one is afraid to admit this. I am well aware of poor science, junk science, and pseudo science, as are many people in this thread. You have provided a lot of arguments against junk science in general, but have not provided one bit of evidence that this study is junk science.
I don't downvote, I prefer to make my points explicitly in writing (unless it's just someone who is a blatant troll). You have been behaving poorly in this thread; trying to claim that I don't know what science is, rather than actually addressing my points. You have been criticizing the research by pointing out completely different fields which produce dubious results for sensation headlines (epidemiology and social psychology are quite different). You seem to be arguing from emotion, as you have some kind of prejudice, possibly well deserved, against certain fields of study; but you're now applying that against other, completely unrelated research, instead of actually engaging with the science to try to learn something about how the world works.
I shouldn't have to say this, but correlation, however
consistent, doesn't equal causation, and causation --
testable, falsifiable theories -- is the foundation on
which science is built.
Falsifiability does not imply that you have established causation. A correlation is just as falsifiable as a causal relationship; all you have to do is show sufficient evidence of the same two variables without the given correlation. Likewise, you can have completely unfalsifiable causal statements; like "God made the heavens and the earth."
You are drifting further and further from actually engaging the topic at hand; all you are doing is rambling about some of your pet peeves about bad science and pseudo-science, but you haven't established that the study in question has anything to do with them.
Think about this. If your position were accurate, the
Creationists would have the right to present Creationism
-- argument without falsifiability -- as science in public
schools.
I have no idea how you are getting a lack of falsifiability from this study at all, and thus no idea how you're linking it to creationism. Creationism doesn't make predictions. This study does. Those predictions can be tested. Yes, they are statistical in nature, and subject to confounding factors and measurement error, but that's the nature of science. Feynman's example of the oil drop experiment was likewise subject to similar kinds of confounding factors and measurement errors; luckily, that was one that was a lot easier to collect data on so it could be much more easily refined.
Would you say that the relationship between smoking and cancer is bad science? The science there has all of the same issues; there are ethical issues with asking someone to smoke in order to determine causation, so all you can do is population wide observational studies and observe a lagged rate of cancer among a population that is strongly correlated with the smoking rate 20 years earlier, and the higher rate of cancer among those who smoke than those who don't. The combination of lagged effect, strong correlation, and explanatory science based on known mechanisms of acute toxicity can all combine to make a fairly compelling argument.
But, social psychologists to the contrary, we will never know, because this kind of study can never ascend to the level of science. All we can be sure of is a rise in ... not crime, but contentless articles whose titles end in a question mark.