On Sat, 11 Dec 2004, John Thornton wrote:
> When I first read the original post I did wonder
> what other possible influencing factors had been controlled for and how but
> I did not automatically assume that the researchers were unprofessional
> enough not to do so or were "dodging" this issue as Miles does. Perhaps
> Miles read the complete study before he posted? I have not.
>
> John Thornton
It hasn't been published yet, and I haven't read the whole article. My comments were based on the info provided. Given the type of nonexperimental research they did (you can't randomly assign women to take diet pills or not and see how their kids turn out), it's not appropriate to make claims about cause and effect, and frankly, nothing in the article could change this point. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't control for any influencing factors (confounds) at all; it's surprisingly common in psychological research to measure two variables, calculate the association, and imply or bluntly state that it's cause and effect.
MIles