Did Falling Testosterone Affect Falling Crime?

Explores Nydwracu's suggestion that the secular crime decline might track the secular testosterone decline (~ -1%/yr, 501->391 ng/dL 1987-2004; causes debated, incl. endocrine-disrupting 'feminizing' water pollutants). Marshals the testosterone-violence correlation (Dabbs' prison study: high-T inmates far likelier in for violence/rape) but honestly finds the hypothesis doesn't fit: the timing is wrong (crime fell sharply only in the 1990s; T fell steadily from the 80s), prison data isn't population-representative, female crime fell too, and proxy evidence (baseball-player face ratios, Lithuanian digit ratios) conflicts. Concludes: nice approach, wrong time-window; calls for population-level T-vs-crime data (and, characteristically, for measuring digit ratios from exhumed skeletons). [REPLICATION CAVEAT: the hypothesis leans on the testosterone->violence/crime correlation, a now-shaky behavioral-endocrinology literature -- though the post ultimately rejects the hypothesis on timing.]

Quality 64 · Strong. Strong (64). A fair, careful exploration that marshals evidence and then honestly rejects its own hypothesis on a timing mismatch -- characteristic epistemic virtue. Held mid-Strong: speculative and built on admittedly weak/non-representative data. Scored on merit (2014).

Claude’s paradigm shift 42 · Moderate. Moderate (42). Floats a specific (borrowed) hypothesis; the fresh element is the attempt to quantify the T-decline against the crime curve.

Real-world impact 2 · Minor. 2 -- minor/within-blog. A speculative crime/biology hypothesis; within-discourse, no material footprint.