Bill Simmons
Sports Fan Me has Googled athletes' heads and jawlines, studied their sizes, then mailed before/after pictures to friends with the subject heading, "CHECK THIS OUT." Sports Fan Me has learned to trust his inner **** detector, to swiftly question any accomplishment that seems extraordinary or superhuman. Sports Fan Me hates that he feels this way, but he does, and there's just no way around it.
but here is the solution.
stuff the pointing the finger at the individual. if its inherent in modern professional and elite "sport", where type A personalities will not sacrifice any advantage a competitor has on them, that is simple to neutralise by matching. Red Queen Effect, running on the treadmill. Dr Bob Goldman asked elite athletes in 1982 whether they would take a drug that guaranteed an Olympic gold medal but would kill them within five years. More than half the athletes said yes.
Now, lets compare the jaws and head sizes of the entire sample, the 2010 era, the 2005 era, v the 1975 era. Same inputs, same metrics of native talent. Rough comparison of same ethnicities. Some more africans in athletics and soccer, and some eastern europeans in American pro sport.
Have the samples head sizes changed? I dont have to ask why.
My theory is we will never ever have a pro sport athlete with a pinhead like Kareem Abdul Jabaar.
Taking the entire epoch as the sampled athlete (bloc) we now have negated any sampling error.
Even more important, we have managed to divert the controversial element of targeting indiduals, and making it partisan, or nationalist. We dont get friendly fans flooding debate in support, the one issue voter.