E28: Missing Variables

Statistically Insignificant

Statistics can't see causal relationships directly, but that doesn't mean we can't reason about them. We look at the sorts of errors that get made in explanations of stuff, and a bunch of case studies ranging from being gay and doing crimes to COVID.

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References:

Thacher, D. (2003). Order maintenance reconsidered: Moving beyond strong causal reasoning. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 94, 381.

William Bratton, George Kelling (December 2014). "Why we need Broken Windows policing". City Journal. Accessed 8th Oct 2022.

Wilson, James Q.; Kelling, George L. (March 1982). "Broken Windows". www.theatlantic.com. Accessed 8th Oct 2022.

Watts, T. W., Duncan, G. J., & Quan, H. (2018). Revisiting the marshmallow test: A conceptual replication investigating links between early delay of gratification and later outcomes. Psychological science, 29(7), 1159-1177.

Shoda, Y., Mischel, W., & Peake, P. K. (1990). Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions. Developmental psychology, 26(6), 978.

Beirne, P. (1993). Inventing Criminology: Essays on the rise of'homo criminalis'. SUNY Press.

Bitterman, A. (2021) Twitter posts about ivermectin impact: https://twitter.com/AviBittMD/status/1461076939192602628

Alexander, S. (2021) Ivermectin: much more than you wanted to know, https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted

The video version of this episode is at https://youtu.be/1RF2_cLBgig

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