Deconstructing anti-harm-reduction metaphors; mortality risk from falls and other traumatic injuries compared to smokeless tobacco use

Anti-harm-reduction advocates sometimes resort to pseudo-analogies to ridicule harm reduction. Those opposed to the use of smokeless tobacco as an alternative to smoking sometimes suggest that the substitution would be like jumping from a 3 story building rather than 10 story, or like shooting yourself in the foot rather than the head. These metaphors are grossly inappropriate for several reasons, notably including the fact that they are misleading about the actual risk levels. Based on the available literature on mortality from falls, we estimate that smoking presents a mortality risk similar to a fall of about 4 stories, while mortality risk from smokeless tobacco is no worse than that from an almost certainly non-fatal fall from less than 2 stories. Other metaphors are similarly misleading. These metaphors, like other false and misleading anti-harm-reduction statements are inherently unethical attempts to prevent people from learning accurate health information. Moreover, they implicitly provide bad advice about health behavior priorities and are intended to persuade people to stick with a behavior that is more dangerous than an available alternative. Finally, the metaphors exhibit a flippant tone that seems inappropriate for a serious discussion of health science

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Space Trumps Time When Talking About Objects

The nature of the relationship between the concepts of space and time in the human mind is much debated. Some claim that space is primary and that it structures time (cf. Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) while others (cf. Walsh, 2003) maintain no difference in status between them. Using fully immersive virtual reality (VR), we examined the influence of object distance and time of appearance on choice of demonstratives (this and that) to refer to objects. Critically, demonstratives can be used spatially (this/that red triangle) and temporally (this/that month). Experiment 1 showed a pattern of demonstrative usage in VR that is consistent with results found in real‐world studies. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 manipulated both when and where objects appeared, providing scenarios where participants were free to use demonstratives in either a temporal or spatial sense. Although we find evidence for time of presentation affecting object mention, the experiments found that demonstrative choice was affected only by distance. These results support the view that spatial uses of demonstratives are privileged over temporal uses

The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal

The non-cognitive skills self-control and grit are often considered predictors of school performance, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear. We investigated the causality of this association using a twin design. Specifically, we evaluated the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while controlling for genetic or environmental influences common to all three traits (i.e., confounding). Teachers of 4891 Dutch 12-year-old twin pairs (of which 3837 were complete pairs) completed a survey about school performance (school grades), self-control (ASEBA self-control scale), and the perseverance aspect of grit. Our analysis aimed to determine the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while simultaneously controlling for genetic or environmental confounding. Establishing the regression relationship corrected for confounding supports the interpretation of the regression relationship as causal. In all analyses, we corrected for sex, rater bias of the teachers, and parental socioeconomic status. Initially, in the standard regression, self-control, and grit explained 28.4% of the school performance variance. However, allowing for genetic confounding (due to genetic pleiotropy) revealed that most of this association could be attributed to genetic influences that the three traits share. In the presence of genetic pleiotropy, the phenotypic regression of school performance on self-control and grit accounted for only 4.4% (i.e., the effect size association with the causal hypothesis). In conclusion, self-control and grit predict school performance primarily due to genetic pleiotropy, with a much smaller causal effect (R 2  = 4.4%). This suggests that interventions targeting self-control and grit alone may yield limited improvements in school performance. </p

The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal

The non-cognitive skills self-control and grit are often considered predictors of school performance, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear. We investigated the causality of this association using a twin design. Specifically, we evaluated the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while controlling for genetic or environmental influences common to all three traits (i.e., confounding). Teachers of 4891 Dutch 12-year-old twin pairs (of which 3837 were complete pairs) completed a survey about school performance (school grades), self-control (ASEBA self-control scale), and the perseverance aspect of grit. Our analysis aimed to determine the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while simultaneously controlling for genetic or environmental confounding. Establishing the regression relationship corrected for confounding supports the interpretation of the regression relationship as causal. In all analyses, we corrected for sex, rater bias of the teachers, and parental socioeconomic status. Initially, in the standard regression, self-control, and grit explained 28.4% of the school performance variance. However, allowing for genetic confounding (due to genetic pleiotropy) revealed that most of this association could be attributed to genetic influences that the three traits share. In the presence of genetic pleiotropy, the phenotypic regression of school performance on self-control and grit accounted for only 4.4% (i.e., the effect size association with the causal hypothesis). In conclusion, self-control and grit predict school performance primarily due to genetic pleiotropy, with a much smaller causal effect (R 2  = 4.4%). This suggests that interventions targeting self-control and grit alone may yield limited improvements in school performance. </p

The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal

The non-cognitive skills self-control and grit are often considered predictors of school performance, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear. We investigated the causality of this association using a twin design. Specifically, we evaluated the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while controlling for genetic or environmental influences common to all three traits (i.e., confounding). Teachers of 4891 Dutch 12-year-old twin pairs (of which 3837 were complete pairs) completed a survey about school performance (school grades), self-control (ASEBA self-control scale), and the perseverance aspect of grit. Our analysis aimed to determine the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while simultaneously controlling for genetic or environmental confounding. Establishing the regression relationship corrected for confounding supports the interpretation of the regression relationship as causal. In all analyses, we corrected for sex, rater bias of the teachers, and parental socioeconomic status. Initially, in the standard regression, self-control, and grit explained 28.4% of the school performance variance. However, allowing for genetic confounding (due to genetic pleiotropy) revealed that most of this association could be attributed to genetic influences that the three traits share. In the presence of genetic pleiotropy, the phenotypic regression of school performance on self-control and grit accounted for only 4.4% (i.e., the effect size association with the causal hypothesis). In conclusion, self-control and grit predict school performance primarily due to genetic pleiotropy, with a much smaller causal effect (R 2  = 4.4%). This suggests that interventions targeting self-control and grit alone may yield limited improvements in school performance. </p

The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal

The non-cognitive skills self-control and grit are often considered predictors of school performance, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear. We investigated the causality of this association using a twin design. Specifically, we evaluated the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while controlling for genetic or environmental influences common to all three traits (i.e., confounding). Teachers of 4891 Dutch 12-year-old twin pairs (of which 3837 were complete pairs) completed a survey about school performance (school grades), self-control (ASEBA self-control scale), and the perseverance aspect of grit. Our analysis aimed to determine the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while simultaneously controlling for genetic or environmental confounding. Establishing the regression relationship corrected for confounding supports the interpretation of the regression relationship as causal. In all analyses, we corrected for sex, rater bias of the teachers, and parental socioeconomic status. Initially, in the standard regression, self-control, and grit explained 28.4% of the school performance variance. However, allowing for genetic confounding (due to genetic pleiotropy) revealed that most of this association could be attributed to genetic influences that the three traits share. In the presence of genetic pleiotropy, the phenotypic regression of school performance on self-control and grit accounted for only 4.4% (i.e., the effect size association with the causal hypothesis). In conclusion, self-control and grit predict school performance primarily due to genetic pleiotropy, with a much smaller causal effect (R 2  = 4.4%). This suggests that interventions targeting self-control and grit alone may yield limited improvements in school performance. </p

The relationship of school performance with self-control and grit is strongly genetic and weakly causal

The non-cognitive skills self-control and grit are often considered predictors of school performance, but whether this relationship is causal remains unclear. We investigated the causality of this association using a twin design. Specifically, we evaluated the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while controlling for genetic or environmental influences common to all three traits (i.e., confounding). Teachers of 4891 Dutch 12-year-old twin pairs (of which 3837 were complete pairs) completed a survey about school performance (school grades), self-control (ASEBA self-control scale), and the perseverance aspect of grit. Our analysis aimed to determine the direct impact of self-control and grit on school performance, while simultaneously controlling for genetic or environmental confounding. Establishing the regression relationship corrected for confounding supports the interpretation of the regression relationship as causal. In all analyses, we corrected for sex, rater bias of the teachers, and parental socioeconomic status. Initially, in the standard regression, self-control, and grit explained 28.4% of the school performance variance. However, allowing for genetic confounding (due to genetic pleiotropy) revealed that most of this association could be attributed to genetic influences that the three traits share. In the presence of genetic pleiotropy, the phenotypic regression of school performance on self-control and grit accounted for only 4.4% (i.e., the effect size association with the causal hypothesis). In conclusion, self-control and grit predict school performance primarily due to genetic pleiotropy, with a much smaller causal effect (R 2  = 4.4%). This suggests that interventions targeting self-control and grit alone may yield limited improvements in school performance. </p