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DomKen -> RE: Polarization of American Politics (4/20/2013 5:49:59 PM)
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ORIGINAL: LizDeluxe
quote:
ORIGINAL: FrostedFlake
It seems the prevalence of weapons does not correlate to crime, but pollution does. So, if you are going to use fact and reason, you should probably tend to believe that guns are not crime, but pollution is.
That seems like a pretty arbitrary conclusion. The two graphs show two sets of correlations - both seemingly valid. How does fact and reason automatically negate the gun ownership data and support the lead pollution data? The pollution angle may be entirely responsible for crime rates with the level of private gun ownership a mere coincidence. I can't say from the data itself. I'm puzzled as to how anyone can conclusively. It's one thing to show a correlation between two sets of data (gun ownership levels vs crime or lead pollution levels vs. crime). It's another thing entirely to say the first resulted in the second just because of the correlation.
The gun ownership versus crime graph shows no correlation. Crime both goes and up and goes down as gun ownership increases. The lead level and crime graphs show similiar shapes over the same time period. That is not proof of causality by itself but it is enough to make further investigation worthwhile.
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