I agree.

I think i love you

So you have data that proves all democrats are against games and all 'young' republicans are pro-games? Give me a break. And once again you can find plenty of younger, self-identified republicans raised in very conservative households who view games, films, ect. as inherently evil. Quit white washing the parties.

And yeah, it does render your point irrelavent. You stated that benefits of exercise had to be due to parental involvement, as well as stating that exercise in and of itself doesn't make kids smarter. The study shows that exercise promotes brain growth (which has been known for a while) and takes into account outside factors like socio-economic status. You can argue the validity of the research all you want, or try to sideline the discussion by picking feathers over a simple brain fart and a literal interpretation of my wording. The fact of the matter is you've merely provided an opinion that isn't supported by facts or research. Unless your hiding some.

Oh and direct quote from the link;

"In the second year of the study, socio-economic status was taken into account, to possibly eliminate that variable as an explanation. As expected, those in the upper-income brackets scored better overall on the academic tests, but within the lower-income set of students, the same results were observed — kids who were more fit performed better academically."

One of the biggest reasons for divergent test scores is removed and there is still a corelation between exercise and test scores. Which means that even the kids with a good home had differences linked to fitness.

So in your mind... to have good involved parents you need to be in a well off home socio-economically?  The answer is... of course not.  It's more common, but it's not an either or thing.

Here are some REAL stats for you.  Do you know when the biggest gap between the Rich and the poor comse Education wise?  During summer break.  When is this gap NOT a problem?  Surprise, when you have good assertive parents.  Read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

What your saying would be me saying "Smokers cough is linked to lung cancer.  Therefore Lung Cancer is caused by Smokers caugh. 

You aren't actually looking at the factor that causes BOTH.  Assertive parenting. 

Note that schools that replace assertive parenting with the school taking on a "work the kid to the bone" attitude it GREATLY increases output. 

Oh I well aware of those nuggets of knowledge.. just how does that support your argument?

Again, the studies accounted for factors such as socio-economic status, that in general is a very strong indicator of parental involvement. Now are you trying to argue that every kid who was 'fit' had involved parents and the 'unfit' kids did not? Because the sampling size of these studies make that prohibitively unlikely.

Quit moving the goalpost.

I don't think you understand what moving the goalposts mean and are saying that simply because you think it sounds insulting.

Nor does it seem like you understand how basic research works... I mean do you understand how they accounted for socio-economic status in this study?

They didn't apply a formula.  They simply split up the rich kids and the poor kids.   They compaired rich fat kids, with rich fit kids.

They also compaired poor rich fat kids, with poor fit kids.  

This leads to MANY counfounding variables that leads the research to ruin.

1) Parental involvement as stated.  Fit kids are much more likely to have less involved parents.  How else do you think a rich fat kid gets fat outside of genetic reasons?  Most unfit kids clearly don't have involved parents... because guess what... they are unfit!  For every kid that isn't fat because of genetics it's clear their parents aren't that involved and assertive with their child... otherwise you know... they would try and work with the kid to get his weight down.  I mean do you think a parent that is planning his sons involvement in sports, education, taking them to the library etc is also letting their kid get fat?  The parent who is meticuliously planning their childs life isn't watching his caloric intake?

2) Not all Fat kids are fat because of lack of fitness.  There are plenty kids that are unfit due to genetics.  These kids get plenty of exercise.  Additionally, there are plenty of kids that don't have to exercise at all to be fit.  There are plenty of kids that can exercise a lot and never be fat nor fit.

What I do know is that chess has been documented to raise math scores (link to a bunch of studies there):

http://www.quadcitychess.com/benefits_of_chess.html

I also WON'T argue that getting exercise can't help improve scores.  Physical fitness does help build a base to improve cognitive skills.  What I do take offense is that games get bashed and then we are told that just more exercise will somehow have great effects, and kids should stop playing games.  So, don't do chess, end up doing things like play basketball or jog. 

Anyone want to debate that playing basketball will do more to improve cognitive skills than playing a strategy game?

You dismissed a piece of evidence contrary to your opinion (hormones released during exercise promoting brain growth). You claimed the article didn't account for outside factors, then switched and said socio-economic status is a poor indicator of parental involvement (its not) and name dropped a pop-sociology book to boot. Now you're trying to discredit the testing methodology by making assumptions. Thats the definition of moving the goalpost - you've changed what the research would need to address to be valid.

Now unless you have the original journal article the link I posted drew from in front of you, any discussions on the validity of said research is meaningless. (not to mention that the article cites several studies, not just one)

You're also assuming that fit children are much more likely to have involved parents and vice versa. Thats a big leap, and I've seen plenty of evidence to the contrary. Maybe you could back it up?

Correlation between weight and genetics is a weak one, and the research I've seen indicates that it can be overcome by exercise in all but the most extreme cases. So again, not really relavent.

Playing videogames is a personal choice that in mass fact helps our economy. He is supposed to speak for the people, not tell them what to do. This is what happens when government becomes too large, the people we give control become maniacs with power.

I dismissed it because it's not relevent.  There is no indication that said brain growth actually HELPS.

The thing about intellegence is... it's not like strength.  You only have to be "smart enough" to understand something.  After that it's all about effort.

Having an IQ of 105 doesn't really make you any smarter then someone with an IQ of 100.  Your IQ has to be a LOT higher for it to make any difference.  Way more then the minor "working out" would provide.  Parents providing there children with proper study habits, and making sure they learn outside of a classroom are going to help their children succeeed far more then jogging would, which likely isn't helping at all.

You've seen plenty of evidence to the contrary that parents who play an involved role in their childrens lives making sure they are always on task and studying have fat and unfit children?  Really?

http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/0002284/52/

Note, Authoritative parents create fat kids... Permissive parents create even fatter kids.  Flexable yet rule setting parents who keep their children on task create fit kids. Authortative parents = good parents who make sure their kids are on task but aren't dicks on it. 

Better parenting leads to more fit kids.  I don't see why you are even argueing this... other then it goes against your arguement.  I mean, it's pretty obvious.

Parenting style is greatly going to effect EVERYTHING about a child.  Heck, if you know enough about parenting you can actually predict 9 times out of 10 what kind of household they came from just based on a psych test and a test of their grades.

Now guess which parenting style is show to lead to the best results in schools... that would be Authortative parents.  You are seeing two effects and calling one a cause... when in reality they are both the effects of good parenting.