They found violent movies decreased crime 5% or more on their opening weekends, and that each violent movie that comes out probably prevents about 1000 assaults. Further, there’s no displacement effect – the missing crimes don’t pop back the following week, they simply never occur.
This is a very naive view of the idea that violent movies increase violence in the population - the author is acting a little surprised that the results actually show that crime goes down a little on opening weekend and doesn't change from normal in the weeks before and after. It makes no long-term analysis of the baseline; the culture of having violent movies so prominent affecting levels of violence in the population. It just shows that violent people like to go to violent movies, not that the baseline violence is increased or decreased from those movies.
Reading over it again, the author is just guilty of bad journalism. The article he's quoting for this section is "Does opening weekend of violent films have an effect on violence rates?", which is a really very specific view, but is painted by the author as an incredibly broad "Violence In The Media Prevents Violent Crime". The irony is that it's the very first example given after a screed about how sloppy the field is.
That's the whole point of the article. He's showing that research can easily be twisted to support one conclusion or the other, and that the standards for what conclusions are acceptable to draw from social sciences research is far too low. It is not that the stuff listed there is in any way the "absolute truth".
Except that he does imply in the conclusion to the article that they are reasonable conclusions to make. It's not just "twist to meet a predetermined conclusion", the author is actually saying that these are reasonable and plausible arguments. I'm saying that the first example isn't plausible because the quoted study is not representative of the argument being made. It's more a comment on spin-doctoring than quality of social psych research.
The author prefaces the six arguments by saying that "I think some of the arguments below will be completely correct, others correct only in certain senses and situations, and still others intriguing but wrong."
Yep, and in the conclusion the author is stating that because he's found a single study that can be heavily misrepresented to make his point, the entire position of 'the other side' is therefore of equally poor quality. It's both bad science and bad journalism. It's like climate change deniers pointing to the 3% of naysaying scientists and therefore claiming parity in the debate.
Look, I'm not saying that social psych research couldn't do with improvement in quality, but that someone who's pointing fingers should make sure their own stuff is tight.
Do you think the evidence in favor of violent movies causing violence is significantly stronger? Comparing to the climate science debate implies that you think there is a huge disparity in evidence. If so, it should be easy to present some.
Personally, I'd think it would be hard to directly test the proposition "existence of violent movies at all increases baseline level of violence in society". You can't do a randomized controlled trial, and there are no good natural experiments. Trying to measure both variables across a range of communities would be hopelessly polluted by confounders. Therefore, I'd spect neither side to have a very strong case, which is exactly the point of the article.
Comparing to the climate science debate implies that you think there is a huge disparity in evidence.
No, my comparison to the climate science debate was more about using a selected study and demanding it has parity with the collection of whatever evidence is on 'the other side'. This is what the author is doing in the conclusion; suggesting that because he's found one or two studies that go against the grain, that the side those studies oppose are equally poorly researched.
Yes, it is difficult to measure, I absolutely agree. But the author could still have made his point without resorting to spin-doctoring. He is suggesting that the line of reasoning is valid and plausible - and it's not, because he's heavily misrepresenting the data in that first case. If that was his point - that some studies heavily misrepresent the data like that - then he should have exposed studies instead of repeating the process as a counterpoint.
In any case, this is a line from his conclusion: the laboratory experiments that experimental exposure to violence causes people to play contrived games in a more aggressive manner couldn’t catch that in the real world, violent movies decrease crime. He's taken this blip from blockbuster opening weekends and taken it as gospel in his rationale. "Because violent people like to go see a movie with everyone else, and they don't do more crimes later on to 'catch up', violent movies do not increase violent behaviour". It's a really naive view of the argument around violent movies and violence in the public, that it only has short-term effects measured in weeks, yet he's using it in his conclusion (not just in his 'case studies').
By "couldn’t catch that in the real world, violent movies decrease crime", the author has clearly taken that faulty interpretation of the study as an overarching truth - even after saying that both sides of the story are 'plausible and intuitive', he's still declared that 'what happens in the real world' is based on the misrepresentation of his study. I don't think the spindoctor-esque misrepresentation was a conscious decision on the author's part, else it would have been highlighted more clearly. I think it was just a mistake.
This is a very naive view of the idea that violent movies increase violence in the population - the author is acting a little surprised that the results actually show that crime goes down a little on opening weekend and doesn't change from normal in the weeks before and after. It makes no long-term analysis of the baseline; the culture of having violent movies so prominent affecting levels of violence in the population. It just shows that violent people like to go to violent movies, not that the baseline violence is increased or decreased from those movies.
Reading over it again, the author is just guilty of bad journalism. The article he's quoting for this section is "Does opening weekend of violent films have an effect on violence rates?", which is a really very specific view, but is painted by the author as an incredibly broad "Violence In The Media Prevents Violent Crime". The irony is that it's the very first example given after a screed about how sloppy the field is.