Nicholas A. Christakis Profile picture
Aug 19, 2019 6 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Disturbing prospective cohort study re the basic public health intervention of fluoridating water: “maternal exposure to higher levels of fluoride in pregnancy was associated with lower IQ scores in children aged 3-4 yrs.” jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap… | @JAMAPediatrics @DAChristakis
Editor of @JAMAPediatrics (my brother @DAChristakis) briefly explains the tough decision to publish this story showing one potential harm of prenatal fluoride exposure (which went against everything he, and I, were taught in public health school): jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
And here is more editorial comment on the study in @JAMAPediatrics showing a non-trivial (at individual or population level) decline in IQ with prenatal fluoride exposure (which has also been seen in some animal studies and one other human study). jamanetwork.com/journals/jamap…
A host of (critical) comments on the study suggesting a possible link between prenatal fluoride exposure and IQ at age 3-4. sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reactio…
Here is a 2012 meta-analysis (I didn’t know that some think fluoride may be a neurotoxin) that concludes “children in high-fluoride areas had significantly lower IQ scores than those who lived in low-fluoride areas” (with obviously tough causal inference). ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/eh…
And here is coverage in @sciencemagazine of @JAMAPediatrics article on prenatal fluoride exposure and early IQ: sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/d…

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More from @NAChristakis

Nov 21
The bacteria in your gut depend on where you are in the social network.

And the microbes within us treat our social networks as the extended environment in which they thrive. They can spread from person to person.

New #HNL work out today in @Nature. 1/
"Gut microbiome strain-sharing within isolated village social networks" with @chocophlan, @JacksonPullman1, @mqdicer, @ShivkumarVs, @DrewPrinster, @adarshsingh110, RM Juárez, @eairoldi, @ilanabrito123 #HNL 2/ nature.com/articles/s4158…Image
This work took >6 years of my life (with maddening delays due to COVID19), but it started as a kernel of an idea left over from our 2007 paper on the spread of obesity ( ) in which we noted that social contagion and biological contagion could both occur 3/nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.105…Image
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Read 20 tweets
Jul 2
In new work from #HNL in @NatureComms, we explore the ability of simple AI to affect the capacity of creativity of human groups. This work continues a stream of work we inaugurated in 2017, studying “hybrid systems” of humans and machines. 1/ nature.com/articles/s4146…
The primary obstacle to finding good ideas is normally not that innovations are hard to evaluate, but rather that coming up with an original idea that pushes the boundary of available ideas is hard. This is a challenge that groups can both mitigate and amplify. Distinctly, since AI can alter group behavior, AI might also affect creativity. 2/
Innovative ideas can enhance the immediate welfare of a population and even modify the course of human evolution. However, finding such valuable ideas often involves exploring a large pool of possibilities – which can be a challenging process for both individuals and groups. 3/
Read 17 tweets
Jul 1
Human beings have both friends and enemies, and they can track such connections. Why? It’s not hard to see why we evolved the capacity for friendship, but why do we have a capacity for animosity, and how might it shape our social networks, potentially for the better? 1/
In new work in @PNASNews, @Amir_Ghasemian and I explore “The Structure and Function of Antagonistic Ties in Village Social Networks.”

At the population level, the existence of antagonism has important implications for the overall structure and function of human groups. #HNL 2/

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…Image
Just as friendship ties can impose costs (ranging from the demands our friends place on us to the risk of infection that social connections entail), antagonistic ties can offer benefits (ranging from enhancing our overall access to novel information or reducing our membership in overly siloed groups). We show how this plays out. 3/

pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…Image
Read 15 tweets
May 3
Social contagion is a powerful force.

People copy the thoughts, feelings, & actions of those to whom they are connected. Understanding social network structure & function makes it possible to use social contagion to intervene in the world to improve health, wealth, & learning.Image
In a large randomized controlled field trial in 24,702 people in 176 isolated villages in Honduras, published in @ScienceMagazine on May 3, 2024, we showed how social contagion can be used to improve human welfare. #HNL @eairoldi science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
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To exploit social contagion, tools are needed to eficiently identify individuals who are better able to initiate cascades. To be maximally useful, such tools should be deployable without having to actually map face-to-face social network interactions. science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
Read 18 tweets
Apr 30
I have some thoughts on this fine statement by @Yale President Peter Salovey regarding desire by some students to impose "ideological litmus test" for access to a shared Yale space.

Salovey said: “Those protestors asked individuals who wished to pass through or enter their area, which is a shared campus space, to agree with their political viewpoints. This action is unacceptable and antithetical to the very purpose of a university.”

It’s is quite right to reject this impulse, but where might students have got this sort of idea?

The background for this statement is pro-Palestinian protests and certain recent actions by some protestors.

For the removal of doubt, I wholly support the right to protest and am sympathetic both to Israel and the civilians suffering horribly in Gaza. I have no problem with the tents or public art.

But protest that stops others from using the campus crosses line into civil disobedience and is distinct from free expression.

and
The problem with the otherwise commendable statement by President Salovey is that the students’ impulse to have a litmus test is part of a broader pattern of such actions at Yale (violating its liberal tenets). We have procedures and bureaucracies that do just this -- which may have given the students this very idea!
Read 7 tweets
Dec 12, 2023
How will AI affect the way we treat each other?

In "hybrid systems" of humans and machines, how will AI (whether simple or complex) affect not just human-machine interactions, but human-human interactions in the presence of machines?

Will AI change human ethical behavior? 1/
In new work in @PNASNews, we showcase a novel cyber-physical system of people driving cars via the internet in an experimental diorama. This system allows us to explore how forms of AI affect existing human norms of cooperation and coordination. 2/ pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
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Hiro Shirado (), @shn_kasa, and I tested how AI might affect norms of reciprocity using a novel cyber-physical lab experiment where online subjects (N=300 in 150 dyads) drove robotic vehicles remotely in a game of CHICKEN. #HNL 3/ shirado.net
pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…
Read 14 tweets

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