I know one person who spanked as a kid. His name? Adolf Hitler. The negative effects of spanking are blatant.

I mean, you're basically pitting your science against mine, and I've been studying the field of psychology (including child development) for half a decade soooo.

If you've got research to link me to, I'd be interested in reading it and evaluating it, but if not, I'm sticking with the information I trust and can validate.

Not sure if you saw this link.

https://www.acpeds.org/the-college-s...-is-misleading

Well, first of all, I never claimed that spanking turns kids into psychopaths. I know the research isn't conclusive regarding whether spanking ruins kids. My point has only ever been that (A) spanking has proven to be less effective than other behavioural training methods and (B) if you don't have to hit someone, you shouldn't.

Regarding meta-analysis, the complaints cited are only partially valid and do not detract from the value of meta-analysis as an analytic tool. Complaining about correlational research? In that case you are going to have a problem with literally all of science, because guess what? It's all correlational. It's not possible to isolate a variable in such a way as to definitively prove causation. We can get very close, and the closer the better, but ultimately, it's all correlation.

I only skimmed the rest because this document appears to be about whether meta-analysis has shown that spanking ****s kids up, which is irrelevant to me because that was never my claim.

The article points are that medicine and discipline are areas where meta-analysis is most flawed. And I wouldn't consider physics, math, and electronics as three areas of science that are corellnational.

Which is why vaccines cause autism.

A correlation is simply an association. That association can be strong or weak. The ability of a scientific experiment to uncover strong or weak associations naturally differs depending on the nature of what is being studied. In the fields you mentioned, scientists are working largely with concrete variables, meaning it's easier to uncover strong associations.

Unfortunately, the brain, consciousness, and behaviour are wildly difficult variables to isolate and control. They're basically universes unto themselves. You can't really hold it against science or psychology that researchers are forced to work with weaker associations than in harder sciences due to the nature of what is being studied.

But yeah, a correlation is literally just a tendency for two variables to coincide, and that applies to the "harder" sciences you mentioned as much as it does to the social sciences; it's just much more difficult to eliminate all of the extraneous noise when you're trying to study something as abstract as "personality" or "emotional turmoil" or "well-being".

lol

Really?

^^^^

Agreed.

Spanking is one of those areas where people tend to wholeheartedly believe what was done to them is right. For example I was never smacked - and I would never dream of hitting my kids. I've never even hit an adult let alone a child - the idea is completely abhorrent to me.