On Balance, Spanking is Detrimental

PRO's defense: I. "Correlation doesn't have to prove causation" So, PRO's first big idea is to defend crutching most of his case on pure correlations. He excuses this by telling us that correlation doesn't have to prove causation, but that it makes a causal relation more probable. PRO doesn't tell us how much more probable it is as a consequence, or at least, if it affects the probability enough for us to be concerned. PRO just says it maters...in some way.- PRO's biggest and most up-to-date source (Gershoff 2016) explicitly tells us that the correlations can't be used to infer causation. Instead, their analysis points to other sorts of studies (longitudinal, mainly) to back up the main thrust of their conclusion. So, this point of PRO's doesn't hold up on its own either way. Correlation can't prove causation, and it can only supplement that hypothesis if we take the rest of PRO's case at face value. (also, the analogy with exercise and cancer is cr@p, because common sense suggests you should believe expert advice when given no other options. It really makes no difference if they toss in a vague statistic or not) II. "The confounders don't matter/are adjusted for properly." PRO only points to two of his 3 longitudinal studies which adjusted for the confounding variables I pointed out. The third (#1 in PRO's sources) was not included in PRO's defense, and did not adjust for earlier childhood behaviors, so you (the voter) can take that as a concession; along with all the other studies that weren't longitudinal (read: the vast majority in Gershoff's meta and all the other individual ones PRO cited). The other two were included in my metas (Straus 1997 in the Larzelere meta, and the Tulane University study in my [3]rd source), and those analyses found no significant negative effect from spanking. So, PRO's wrong about this too; his other studies were addressed. Additionally, the analyses that look at his studies show that confounders absolutely matter and they absolutely affect the results when adjusted for. III. Definitions PRO's totally lost if he thinks inconsistently defining your explanatory variable can't affect analyses. The Gershoff meta, for example, includes a study [9] where "spanking" could mean hitting children on the back or the head. How can PRO know the other studies don't also include excessive or abusive applications of spanking, or different but similar practices? The answer is that he can't. Also, as I pointed out in R2, the only studies that defined spanking clearly did not find any particular negative effects. PRO dropped that point too. PRO's attack: I. My 4th study didn't say time-outs aren't superficially correlated with bad outcomes, as spanking is. It said they are, but that the association is not as significant as with child psychotherapy; there is no denial that significant (but unadjusted) associations persist anyway. Also, as I demonstrated earlier in Section II (addressing Con's defense), the confounder in case of child psychotherapy is absolutely the case in spanking research too. II. PRO's only major argument against my meta is that his (Gershoff 2016) looks at more studies. Since both metas use intentionally different methodologies, this is already a useless comparison. I also explained in R2 (not to mention sections II and III here) why Larzeleres's meta is methodologically superior to Gershoff's (something PRO didn't directly address). Since this is the core thrust of my affirmative case, voters can extend it entirely. Remember: Larzeleres's meta found that spanking is, at worst, of no negative or a slightly positive effect; and at best, one of the most effective child disciplinary tactics out there. So, in light of PRO failing to prove any significant long-term detriment, this shows spanking cannot be detrimental on balance. III. Also, all the papers Larzeleres's meta analyzed are accessible, and found at the bottom of link [6] in my R2 sources. Summary: PRO didn't save face-value correlations, so voters can dismiss the overwhelming majority of studies he and his metas cite. As I proved in Section II here (and section I in R2), metas that look at proper (longitudinal) study designs come to the opposite conclusion. They include both papers PRO said I didn't take into account, so that point is as useless as his defense of inconsistent definitions. That covers all my major negations of PRO's case; and my affirmative case remains untouched too. Voters: PRO's wrong about literally everything of consequence, and I'm still right too. VOTE CON! Sources: 1-8 see R2 9. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...