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