Douglas_Knight comments on Less Wrong Parents - Less Wrong

11 Post author: saliency 03 November 2012 04:59AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (58)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: saliency 02 November 2012 09:00:24PM 5 points [-]

I am pro-breast feeding but skeptical of the IQ claim. Can you link the study?

My guess is they compare the avg IQ to the average of a selection of people who breast feed.
I would expect this to be subject to selection bias.

Comment author: Douglas_Knight 03 November 2012 01:55:41PM *  5 points [-]

Why are you in favor of breast-feeding at all?
It is correlated with socio-economic status, and thus with all good things. But every correlation I have seen corrected for parental SES goes away, including IQ. Decades of randomized controlled studies demonstrate no effects. On the positive side, I must admit one cluster-randomized (n=31) study of IQ in Belarus, but I am not impressed.

Comment author: saliency 03 November 2012 08:02:10PM 1 point [-]

Because when in doubt go with convention.

I think there is a lot we don't understand.

Now if my wife found it bothersome perhaps we would not follow convention, but so far it she likes doing it. From a fathers perspective it is vastly superior due to the ability to leave a bottle out of the refrigerator for 6 hours instead of 1.

Comment author: Randy_M 05 November 2012 04:58:49PM -1 points [-]

Is that a serious question? Because when you add "at all" and then list sudies which only address IQ benefits it seems like you think that is the only potential benefit.