
Autism link to air pollution raised - Libertatea
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-30521255
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onion2k
Are the rates of autism occurrences falling in the US and Europe? With the
huge reduction in the number of people smoking, the end of leaded petrol,
requirements for catalytic converters in cars, and most of the manufacturing
industry being exported to the far east, presumably particulate pollution is
_far_ lower than was during the post-WWII years. If this research is correct
there should be a corresponding drop in the numbers of autistic children.

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saalaa
The keywords is "presumably". There should only be a drop if your hypothesis
is correct which given population growth, car ownership trends and overall
economic growth is doubtful.

~~~
ern
_The keywords is "presumably". There should only be a drop if your hypothesis
is correct which given population growth, car ownership trends and overall
economic growth is doubtful._

I think it's safe to say, that, in the West, air pollution has dropped
dramatically:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog)

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Beltiras
[http://www.epa.gov/air/airpolldata.html](http://www.epa.gov/air/airpolldata.html)

There are probably more APIs out there. Autism numbers by location should be
known. Simple correlation could go a long way to check the consistency of the
hypothesis.

EDIT: The autism data needed would be age of diagnosis, to map it to the
proper air quality metric.

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anonomist
This looks like nothing more than spurious correlation. Even if rates of
autism and levels of air pollution are found to be correlated, we cannot infer
that they are causally related. Another factor correlated with air pollution
could actually be causally linked with autism.

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dschiptsov
Yet another example of meme-science. Only idiots would try to explain a
complex, subtle phenomena to a single environmental factor.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
"There is a large inherited component to autism, but lead researcher Dr Marc
Weisskopf said there was mounting evidence that air pollution may play a role
too."

~~~
dschiptsov
The way of thinking about Autism should be like the way we think about human
language. Yes, the ability to speak, or rather our abilities to acquire and
learn a language are, of course, inherited, but when there is no one to speak
to a child, or a child refused or unable to participate, or there are other
obstacles in the environment, after passing a certain age he will never speak
at all.

It seems that autism has the same pattern. It has genetic aspect and
environmental aspect and one of personal experience and amount of practice, so
no one could identify all the factors, leave alone find a "single cause". Of
course, it is genes, for, say 80% (which is rather a flawed mental construct),
like it is in everything else - height or IQ, for example (why should it be
different?), but the rest 20% are, of course, not mere "air pollution".

It is the same meme-nonsense (with which we're bombarded daily by mainstream
media) as to say, "look, children in a toxic environments have worse grades
and misbehave more". OK, perhaps they are, but this is an "empty message", a
"meme" based on a naive common-sense. Correlation does not imply causation,
and even if this factor is a "valid" one, its actual implication is
infinitesimally small - it, perhaps, contributes to "stress" or states related
to "depression" (which is another meme). Most of these meme-studies are just
misuse of statistical tools together with a confirmation and self-serving
biases. People construct statistical "evidences" for their own flawed
constructs, instead of methodically removing everything "mental" and see what
remains.

