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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday December 15 2016, @01:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-than-growing-up-to-be-a-sink dept.

Scientists at Kings College London performed a longitudinal study to test the 'Pareto principle' and found that adults who were greater users of public services were most likely to have had a low score on the intelligence and impulsivity test administered at age three.

"About 20 per cent of population is using the lion's share of a wide array of public services," said Prof Terrie Moffitt, of King's College and Duke University in North Carolina. "The same people use most of the NHS, the criminal courts, insurance claims, for disabling injury, pharmaceutical prescriptions and special welfare benefits.

"If we stopped there it might be fair to think these are lazy bums who are freeloading off the taxpayer and exploiting the public purse.

"But we also went further back into their childhood and found that 20 per cent begin their lives with mild problems with brain function and brain health when they were very small children.

"Looking at health examinations really changed the whole picture. It gives you a feeling of compassion for these people as opposed to a feeling of blame.

"Being able to predict which children will struggle is an opportunity to intervene in their lives very early to attempt to change their trajectories, for everyone's benefit and could bring big returns on investment for government."

Full Paper: Childhood forecasting of a small segment of the population with large economic burden DOI: 10.1038/s41562-016-0005


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  • (Score: 3, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @02:52PM (#441613)

    Scientists at Kings College London

    Social science does not qualify you for the title "scientist".

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @03:37PM (#441632)

    Is why the science part is prefixed with social. Just because they don't reach conclusions by mixing chemicals in a lab or drilling holes in a persons skull, does not mean scientific method was not applied.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:01PM (#441646)

      I view the word "social" when out in front of science as "take this with a large grain of salt, because I very likely haven't given you all the data I collected. I've thrown out data that would muddy the waters. There is no control group here, sometimes because it would be unethical and other times just because a control group would disprove my pet theory. Instead, I've presented only the data that will give my preconceived, (re|pro)gressive notions the veneer of 'science.'"

      Research along these lines is simultaneously very important and the beginning of an atrocity.

      Maybe the problem is that people are too eager to apply social science to individuals. You're not allowed to do $x even though they get to do $x because "research shows!" We're going to mutilate your body at birth but it's the end of the fucking world if anybody thinks about mutilating their body at birth because "research shows!"

      The problem could also be rationalization. Maybe humans are simply too eager to rationalize their atrocious nature with this kind of research. Perhaps if humans were more honest about being vile, petty, wrathful creatures this kind of science wouldn't send shivers up my spine.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:44PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @04:44PM (#441662)

        I view the word "social" when out in front of science as "take this with a large grain of salt, because I very likely haven't given you all the data I collected. I've thrown out data that would muddy the waters. There is no control group here, sometimes because it would be unethical and other times just because a control group would disprove my pet theory. Instead, I've presented only the data that will give my preconceived, (re|pro)gressive notions the veneer of 'science.'"

        Well, get ready to open your mind because all those problems and more exist in other fields too. Like bio-medical science [slate.com] and even physics. [fabiusmaximus.com]

        Yeah, turns out the problem isn't the field of science, its the fact that people do science and people are universally fallible. Ironically, one of the biggest reasons that psychology was the first to get a lot of shit over replication is because the culture of psychology research is the most open. [andrewgelman.com] Nobody's trying to keep their research secret so they can patent it or gain some other business advantage. It also gets tons of coverage in the popular press as compared to esoteric subatomic experiments and chemical reactions that make laymen's eyes glaze over. So all of their problems are the easiest to see. But its just the tip of the iceberg.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:31PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @05:31PM (#441685)

          That's all true, but nobody creates policy based on esoteric subatomic experiments. That would be the other reason psychology gets a ton of coverage. At least, I've never been discriminated against because of a subatomic experiment that I know of.

          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:53PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @06:53PM (#441719)

            > but nobody creates policy based on esoteric subatomic experiments.

            Hello? Our entire nuclear energy program is based on the concept of producing weapons grade material. We could have designed our reactors around different principles but chose not to and consequently our engineering and operational knowledge of much less dangerous designs with much less waste is exponentially smaller.

            And then there was the use of aersols that caused the ozone hole. And the use anti-biotics in our meat industries that have caused weird effects on children and the development of anti-biotic resistant diseases. Mercury poisoning of our fish. etc And don't even mention CO2 pollution being potential civilization ender.

            The number of times when half-assed so-called "hard science" has enabled bad policy is at least as great as when social science has.

            You are going to have move those goal posts way, way further before you'll find solid ground for your myopic complaints about social sciences.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:44PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:44PM (#441799)

          Well, get ready to open your mind because all those problems and more exist in other fields too.

          But not to the same degree. No field of science is going to be perfect, but the social sciences are especially bad. I would even say that medical science is in a terrible position.

          It also gets tons of coverage in the popular press

          Which frankly just take already bad studies and frequently fail to inform people of their flaws. One problem with the press is that they mostly don't even bother to make it clear that a study that has yet to be replicated and conclusions that have yet to have a consensus formed around them based on years of study are far from set in stone. The social sciences are more effective at promoting political pet agendas than other fields of science, which isn't really the fault of the field itself but it makes errors potentially more costly.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @09:38PM (#441794)

      They often apply the scientific method poorly, their data relies on too much subjectivity, their studies can't be replicated, and/or they reach faulty, arbitrary conclusions based on the data. The social sciences are not very reliable at this point.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @02:36AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @02:36AM (#441910)

      Just because you claim the scientific method was not applied does not mean the scientific method was applied. Postulate your hypothesis and then prove it's not incorrect through reproducible prospective studies. When you come up with accurate predictions we'll talk. Anyone can come up with bullshit to explain away a given data set but that is NOT science.