Pseudo-science

[Benotti69]

Re: Re:

Belief in conspiracy is pretty normal here, often a default position to explain stuff when if anything good old fashioned screw up is more likely most of the time. In most cases it's based on weak evidence/assertions. Not necessarily the sort of big brother level of conspiracy as discussed here, but the principles still apply:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/conspiracy-science/

Yes, conspiracies that those in charge of sporting federations are corrupt. Now that is a joke.

That posters still use the word conspiracy when we talk about the corruption of sport really shows willful blindness or another underhanded agenda.

E.G. FIFA president and Vice PResident banned for 8 years are under an FBI investigation. IAAF Former president under investigation, never mind his sons and others. But again people think that these are wild conspiracies......

FiFI? IAAF? Armstrong? Match fixing? Just an old fashion screw up according to Alex...

Statistically speaking there have been more dopers filling the top 5 of a GT than not. Not sure how suggesting a rider might be doping would be a conspiracy. It would in fact be the norm.

For me, a wild conspiracy would be someone winning clean!

 

[Alex Simmons/RST]

Re: Re:

Belief in conspiracy is pretty normal here, often a default position to explain stuff when if anything good old fashioned screw up is more likely most of the time. In most cases it's based on weak evidence/assertions. Not necessarily the sort of big brother level of conspiracy as discussed here, but the principles still apply:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/conspiracy-science/

I hope you aren't talking about doping in cycling being based on weak evidence/assertions, cos it's overwhelming

No, I mean the tendency to attribute every little snippet as "evidence" supporting a conspiracy. Corruption and doping yes, but conspiracy is another ball game entirely.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Belief in conspiracy is pretty normal here, often a default position to explain stuff when if anything good old fashioned screw up is more likely most of the time. In most cases it's based on weak evidence/assertions. Not necessarily the sort of big brother level of conspiracy as discussed here, but the principles still apply:
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/conspiracy-science/

I hope you aren't talking about doping in cycling being based on weak evidence/assertions, cos it's overwhelming

No, I mean the tendency to attribute every little snippet as "evidence" supporting a conspiracy. Corruption and doping yes, but conspiracy is another ball game entirely.

if doping is viewed through the prism of the insider-outsider model then it is a conspiracy...and certainly the omerta/spit in the soup culture we know exists would strongly suggest it is a conspiracy...

using conspiracy in is more dictionary defintion meaning that is, rather than what is has perhaps now more associated with...as evidenced by your link

 

[Merckx index]

From the link posted by Alex:

people tend to assume or overemphasize internal factors (inherent character) as an explanation for the behavior of others, rather than situational or external factors. If we see someone trip while walking down the sidewalk we think they are clumsy, rather than that there was a crack in the sidewalk. We, of course, exempt ourselves from this assumption are are happy to attribute our missteps to unavoidable external factors.

Conspiracy theorists take this attribution error to the extreme, and will often attribute the behavior of others to internal goals (the conspiracy) rather than benign situational factors.

While I think there’s some truth to this observation, the blogger is presenting it as an either-or situation, when usually that isn’t the case. E.g., there may be a crack in the sidewalk that the person stumbled over, but a person who was more aware might have seen the crack and avoided it. So in a broad sense of the word, the person tripping was clumsy. It just took the crack to make this evident. He wouldn’t have stumbled if there hadn’t been a crack, but conversely, other people would have seen the crack and not stumbled.

Consider applying this to Sky’s hiring of Leinders. The internal view says that Sky knew Leinders was involved in doping, and hired him to dope some of their riders. The external view says that Sky didn’t know, at the time they hired him, that Leinders was involved in doping. That was the crack they stumbled over.

A view that allows for both internal and external factors might argue that while Sky didn’t know Leinders was involved in doping, neither did they pay attention to the possibility that he might be. And the reason they didn’t pay attention is because it wasn’t a priority. So while Sky might not have been promoting doping, as a pure internal view would suggest, neither were they purely the victim of an unfortunate accident, as a pure external view suggests. They were engaging in negligent behavior--born of a lax attitude towards doping--which any observer could see was likely to increase the odds of hiring a doping doctor.

What makes it worse for Sky, of course, are all their claims of being zero tolerance. It’s like someone claiming he’s always on the lookout for cracks in the sidewalk, then after tripping over one, protesting he wasn’t clumsy.

 

[heart_attack_man]

From the link posted by Alex:

people tend to assume or overemphasize internal factors (inherent character) as an explanation for the behavior of others, rather than situational or external factors. If we see someone trip while walking down the sidewalk we think they are clumsy, rather than that there was a crack in the sidewalk. We, of course, exempt ourselves from this assumption are are happy to attribute our missteps to unavoidable external factors.

Conspiracy theorists take this attribution error to the extreme, and will often attribute the behavior of others to internal goals (the conspiracy) rather than benign situational factors.

While I think there’s some truth to this observation, the blogger is presenting it as an either-or situation, when usually that isn’t the case. E.g., there may be a crack in the sidewalk that the person stumbled over, but a person who was more aware might have seen the crack and avoided it. So in a broad sense of the word, the person tripping was clumsy. It just took the crack to make this evident. He wouldn’t have stumbled if there hadn’t been a crack, but conversely, other people would have seen the crack and not stumbled.

Consider applying this to Sky’s hiring of Leinders. The internal view says that Sky knew Leinders was involved in doping, and hired him to dope some of their riders. The external view says that Sky didn’t know, at the time they hired him, that Leinders was involved in doping. That was the crack they stumbled over.

A view that allows for both internal and external factors might argue that while Sky didn’t know Leinders was involved in doping, neither did they pay attention to the possibility that he might be. And the reason they didn’t pay attention is because it wasn’t a priority. So while Sky might not have been promoting doping, as a pure internal view would suggest, neither were they purely the victim of an unfortunate accident, as a pure external view suggests. They were engaging in negligent behavior--born of a lax attitude towards doping--which any observer could see was likely to increase the odds of hiring a doping doctor.

What makes it worse for Sky, of course, are all their claims of being zero tolerance. It’s like someone claiming he’s always on the lookout for cracks in the sidewalk, then after tripping over one, protesting he wasn’t clumsy.

Great post, MI.

 

[Davesta]

From the link posted by Alex:

people tend to assume or overemphasize internal factors (inherent character) as an explanation for the behavior of others, rather than situational or external factors. If we see someone trip while walking down the sidewalk we think they are clumsy, rather than that there was a crack in the sidewalk. We, of course, exempt ourselves from this assumption are are happy to attribute our missteps to unavoidable external factors.

Conspiracy theorists take this attribution error to the extreme, and will often attribute the behavior of others to internal goals (the conspiracy) rather than benign situational factors.

While I think there’s some truth to this observation, the blogger is presenting it as an either-or situation, when usually that isn’t the case. E.g., there may be a crack in the sidewalk that the person stumbled over, but a person who was more aware might have seen the crack and avoided it. So in a broad sense of the word, the person tripping was clumsy. It just took the crack to make this evident. He wouldn’t have stumbled if there hadn’t been a crack, but conversely, other people would have seen the crack and not stumbled.

Consider applying this to Sky’s hiring of Leinders. The internal view says that Sky knew Leinders was involved in doping, and hired him to dope some of their riders. The external view says that Sky didn’t know, at the time they hired him, that Leinders was involved in doping. That was the crack they stumbled over.

A view that allows for both internal and external factors might argue that while Sky didn’t know Leinders was involved in doping, neither did they pay attention to the possibility that he might be. And the reason they didn’t pay attention is because it wasn’t a priority. So while Sky might not have been promoting doping, as a pure internal view would suggest, neither were they purely the victim of an unfortunate accident, as a pure external view suggests. They were engaging in negligent behavior--born of a lax attitude towards doping--which any observer could see was likely to increase the odds of hiring a doping doctor.

What makes it worse for Sky, of course, are all their claims of being zero tolerance. It’s like someone claiming he’s always on the lookout for cracks in the sidewalk, then after tripping over one, protesting he wasn’t clumsy.

Great post, MI.

Very good post indeed!

Although I have highlighted one sentence ** which is pertinent to this particular discussion - whilst it's entirely possible that the reason is that they weren't paying attention because doping isn't a priority (and indeed, this is what many in the clinic believe), it is possible that they weren't paying attention due to a simple mistake. People make mistakes, in all lines of work and all walks of life, and this could simply have been one of those - even the person who claims he's always on the lookout for cracks might have a momentary lapse in concentration and make a mistake.
There could well be other potential reasons as well that they weren't paying attention - incompetence, wilful blindness, or the desire to hire a doping doctor overshadowing their forethought on how it might appear to the public, among others.

The point being, that whilst Sky have demonstrated time and again that doping doesn't appear to be the priority they stated it to be, that doesn't mean that every notable instance (such as the hiring of Leinders) is necessarily evidence to support that particular point. The accumulation of many such instances is damning, but some of those instances could simply be genuine mistakes or due to situational factors.


**I'm not necessarily suggesting that I think this is your point of view, as I appreciate you were using it as an example, but I think it was a statement worth highlighting for the benefit of everyone.

 

[sniper]

my mother in law is a rather classical conspiracy thinker.
whenever something bad/odd happens, she'll think there's somebody behind it.
three examples:
- her son got ill once (turned out to be his cecum). My mother in law thought he'd been poisoned by his wife.
- my mother-in-law's computer at some point was full of viruses. We cleaned up the computer, but in a few days the viruses were back. My mother in law claimed that this must have been the evil work of a neighbour with whom she had had a fight over garbage a few weeks earlier.
- When she found an unidentified white pill somewhere in her house, her first thought was that it must be X-tacy and I was one of the prime suspects of having imported it into the house. Her son's wife was another suspect, and my mother in law even linked it back to the earlier cecum problems of her son. It later turned out to be a sleeping pill of my father in law.

etc.

That's paradigm examples of a conspiracy thinker, and imo the term as such has little to do with the doping and corruption discussions in the Clinic. Let's use the word the way it was meant to be used, rather than throwing it around like a strawman as I see happening in the Clinic so often, especially by defenders of Lance and now Team Sky.

I agree of course that not all events will eventually turn out to be related, but imo in the case of tppsport and cheating it's always better to link two dots too many than to refuse to link any dots in the first place. We've seen so much corruption, so much doping, so many attempted cover-ups, so many victims.

As for Leinders, assuming Sky didn't know about his doping is ludicrous as it goes against everything we know about how the cycling community works and has worked in the past three decades or so. Again, the word "conspiracy" should be avoided in this context, just as the word "independent" should be avoided in the context of Froome's 2015 testing or UCI's antidoping.
If we apply these terms inflationary (i.e. to cases were they don't really apply), before we know it these words will be void of any real meaning. Let's pay just that tiny bit of tribute to the English language, shall we?

edit: just my two cents of course.

 

[gillan1969]

From the link posted by Alex:

people tend to assume or overemphasize internal factors (inherent character) as an explanation for the behavior of others, rather than situational or external factors. If we see someone trip while walking down the sidewalk we think they are clumsy, rather than that there was a crack in the sidewalk. We, of course, exempt ourselves from this assumption are are happy to attribute our missteps to unavoidable external factors.

Conspiracy theorists take this attribution error to the extreme, and will often attribute the behavior of others to internal goals (the conspiracy) rather than benign situational factors.

While I think there’s some truth to this observation, the blogger is presenting it as an either-or situation, when usually that isn’t the case. E.g., there may be a crack in the sidewalk that the person stumbled over, but a person who was more aware might have seen the crack and avoided it. So in a broad sense of the word, the person tripping was clumsy. It just took the crack to make this evident. He wouldn’t have stumbled if there hadn’t been a crack, but conversely, other people would have seen the crack and not stumbled.

Consider applying this to Sky’s hiring of Leinders. The internal view says that Sky knew Leinders was involved in doping, and hired him to dope some of their riders. The external view says that Sky didn’t know, at the time they hired him, that Leinders was involved in doping. That was the crack they stumbled over.

A view that allows for both internal and external factors might argue that while Sky didn’t know Leinders was involved in doping, neither did they pay attention to the possibility that he might be. And the reason they didn’t pay attention is because it wasn’t a priority. So while Sky might not have been promoting doping, as a pure internal view would suggest, neither were they purely the victim of an unfortunate accident, as a pure external view suggests. They were engaging in negligent behavior--born of a lax attitude towards doping--which any observer could see was likely to increase the odds of hiring a doping doctor.

What makes it worse for Sky, of course, are all their claims of being zero tolerance. It’s like someone claiming he’s always on the lookout for cracks in the sidewalk, then after tripping over one, protesting he wasn’t clumsy.

Great post, MI.

Very good post indeed!

Although I have highlighted one sentence ** which is pertinent to this particular discussion - whilst it's entirely possible that the reason is that they weren't paying attention because doping isn't a priority (and indeed, this is what many in the clinic believe), it is possible that they weren't paying attention due to a simple mistake. People make mistakes, in all lines of work and all walks of life, and this could simply have been one of those - even the person who claims he's always on the lookout for cracks might have a momentary lapse in concentration and make a mistake.
There could well be other potential reasons as well that they weren't paying attention - incompetence, wilful blindness, or the desire to hire a doping doctor overshadowing their forethought on how it might appear to the public, among others.

The point being, that whilst Sky have demonstrated time and again that doping doesn't appear to be the priority they stated it to be, that doesn't mean that every notable instance (such as the hiring of Leinders) is necessarily evidence to support that particular point. The accumulation of many such instances is damning, but some of those instances could simply be genuine mistakes or due to situational factors.


**I'm not necessarily suggesting that I think this is your point of view, as I appreciate you were using it as an example, but I think it was a statement worth highlighting for the benefit of everyone.

this would however be to assume that the cracks in the pavement were difficult to see.......they weren't...

Indeed in another trip, they managed to miss JTL as well....

damn those unlucky breaks

 

[Davesta]

this would however be to assume that the cracks in the pavement were difficult to see.......they weren't...

Indeed in another trip, they managed to miss JTL as well....

damn those unlucky breaks

Haha!

Leinders probably wasn't the best example, but was the one given by the previous poster, so...

 

[fmk_RoI]

Peter Sagan says that "someone has said that just looking at the rainbow jersey gives you an extra 50 watts of power." Others say that the yellow jersey gives you wings. I'm not sure what powers have been asserted for other iconic jumpers in cycling but there's probably others. So. We've got these claims. Where's the science? Has anyone ever looked at this? Someone out there with tables of watts must have the evidence necessary to back these claims up.

 

[Nick C.]

Re:

Peter Sagan says that "someone has said that just looking at the rainbow jersey gives you an extra 50 watts of power." Others day that the yellow jersey gives you wings. I'm not sure what powers have been asserted for other iconic jumpers in cycling but there's probably others. So. We've got these claims. Where's the science? Has anyone ever looked at this? Someone out there with tables of watts must have the evidence necessary to back these claims up.

I hear on television that Red Bull gives you wings.

 

[Davesta]

Re:

.....

I think the point that Alex RST was trying to make (or, at least, the pertinent point for me), is that there is at times a prevalence of "conspiracy-type thinking" in the clinic.
I don't think it's quite as pronounced as your mother-in-law attributing a computer virus to a grumpy neighbour - it is more nuanced than that - but not so different in it's application. It is, essentially, a failure to evaluate evidence on an objective level, but rather to evaluate it based on a set of pre-existing biases, and therefore to (potentially) wrongly attribute cause.

To me, it seems to manifest as such:

- A number of pieces of evidence (circumstantial or concrete) emerge to implicate or suggest that a certain athlete or team is doping
- A poster evaluates the evidence and comes to the (often quite reasonable) conclusion that that athlete or team is likely doping
- As more evidence emerges, the poster becomes more entrenched in their conclusion that the athlete or team is doping
- A further piece of (perhaps weak) evidence emerges. But rather than evaluate this evidence objectively, the poster is now so firm in their belief that the athlete or team is doping, that they fail to evaluate this new evidence on an objective or rational level. Rather, they unthinkingly attribute it to their now preconceived bias, and consider it further evidence to support their conclusion, even if the much more likely reason for this particular piece of evidence is, for example as Alex suggests, a good old-fashioned screw up.

This also mainfests at a "social level" - that is, within groups of posters, not just any single one poster.
And it also manifests across subjects - that is, "A was evidence of X doping, therefore B is evidence of Y doping", without objectively considering the other likely causes of B.

I do agree that the phrase "conspiracy theory" is inflammatory though, and probably not helpful. It conjures up images of strange people in tin-foil hats, and impressive mental gymnastics such as those employed by your mother-in-law.
The suggestion that a grumpy neighbour hacked your computer is clearly a much larger stretch in logic than the suggestion that a GT winner is doping! But the type of thinking I outlined above is still "bad thinking" or "bad science". Unfortunately we're all guilty of it at one time or another, especially when we become emotionally involved

That's why discussions such as this are useful, IMO - they help to keep us all honest, and help us all reach better and stronger conclusions.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

.....

I think the point that Alex RST was trying to make (or, at least, the pertinent point for me), is that there is at times a prevalence of "conspiracy-type thinking" in the clinic.
I don't think it's quite as pronounced as your mother-in-law attributing a computer virus to a grumpy neighbour - it is more nuanced than that - but not so different in it's application. It is, essentially, a failure to evaluate evidence on an objective level, but rather to evaluate it based on a set of pre-existing biases, and therefore to (potentially) wrongly attribute cause.

To me, it seems to manifest as such:

- A number of pieces of evidence (circumstantial or concrete) emerge to implicate or suggest that a certain athlete or team is doping
- A poster evaluates the evidence and comes to the (often quite reasonable) conclusion that that athlete or team is likely doping
- As more evidence emerges, the poster becomes more entrenched in their conclusion that the athlete or team is doping
- A further piece of (perhaps weak) evidence emerges. But rather than evaluate this evidence objectively, the poster is now so firm in their belief that the athlete or team is doping, that they fail to evaluate this new evidence on an objective or rational level. Rather, they unthinkingly attribute it to their now preconceived bias, and consider it further evidence to support their conclusion, even if the much more likely reason for this particular piece of evidence is, for example as Alex suggests, a good old-fashioned screw up.

This also mainfests at a "social level" - that is, within groups of posters, not just any single one poster.
And it also manifests across subjects - that is, "A was evidence of X doping, therefore B is evidence of Y doping", without objectively considering the other likely causes of B.

I do agree that the phrase "conspiracy theory" is inflammatory though, and probably not helpful. It conjures up images of strange people in tin-foil hats, and impressive mental gymnastics such as those employed by your mother-in-law.
The suggestion that a grumpy neighbour hacked your computer is clearly a much larger stretch in logic than the suggestion that a GT winner is doping! But the type of thinking I outlined above is still "bad thinking" or "bad science". Unfortunately we're all guilty of it at one time or another, especially when we become emotionally involved

That's why discussions such as this are useful, IMO - they help to keep us all honest, and help us all reach better and stronger conclusions.

There is absolutely nothing about what you wrote that applies to the clinic in particular. A few people you mentioned in the clinic are like that. On pretty much every other internet forum on any subject a similar or greater % of people are like that. In any group on the planet there are people like that. What you described is not in anyway something that is particular to this subforum.

 

[Davesta]

Re: Re:

There is absolutely nothing about what you wrote that applies to the clinic in particular.

I never said it did apply to the clinic in particular.

But wouldn't it be nice to try to hold ourselves to higher standards than any other group on the planet, especially as the raison d'etre of the clinic is, arguably, to evaluate evidence?

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

.....

I think the point that Alex RST was trying to make (or, at least, the pertinent point for me), is that there is at times a prevalence of "conspiracy-type thinking" in the clinic.
I don't think it's quite as pronounced as your mother-in-law attributing a computer virus to a grumpy neighbour - it is more nuanced than that - but not so different in it's application. It is, essentially, a failure to evaluate evidence on an objective level, but rather to evaluate it based on a set of pre-existing biases, and therefore to (potentially) wrongly attribute cause.

To me, it seems to manifest as such:

- A number of pieces of evidence (circumstantial or concrete) emerge to implicate or suggest that a certain athlete or team is doping
- A poster evaluates the evidence and comes to the (often quite reasonable) conclusion that that athlete or team is likely doping
- As more evidence emerges, the poster becomes more entrenched in their conclusion that the athlete or team is doping
- A further piece of (perhaps weak) evidence emerges. But rather than evaluate this evidence objectively, the poster is now so firm in their belief that the athlete or team is doping, that they fail to evaluate this new evidence on an objective or rational level. Rather, they unthinkingly attribute it to their now preconceived bias, and consider it further evidence to support their conclusion, even if the much more likely reason for this particular piece of evidence is, for example as Alex suggests, a good old-fashioned screw up.

This also mainfests at a "social level" - that is, within groups of posters, not just any single one poster.
And it also manifests across subjects - that is, "A was evidence of X doping, therefore B is evidence of Y doping", without objectively considering the other likely causes of B.

I do agree that the phrase "conspiracy theory" is inflammatory though, and probably not helpful. It conjures up images of strange people in tin-foil hats, and impressive mental gymnastics such as those employed by your mother-in-law.
The suggestion that a grumpy neighbour hacked your computer is clearly a much larger stretch in logic than the suggestion that a GT winner is doping! But the type of thinking I outlined above is still "bad thinking" or "bad science". Unfortunately we're all guilty of it at one time or another, especially when we become emotionally involved

That's why discussions such as this are useful, IMO - they help to keep us all honest, and help us all reach better and stronger conclusions.

this is pro cycling...it is difficult therefore to disaggregate it from PEDs (unless you are a physiologist obviously ;-) )

i don't disagree with the above however let's look at our good friend (nay scientist) Burnley...he made a comparison between the GT transformations of Armstrong and Froome, arguing Froome's being more incremental (itself a joke). Look at the top ten of either the Vuelta '98 or the Tour '99 (Armstrong's breakthrough GTs). Armstrong's performances and indeed the era's cannot be used to make any assumptions other than, 'bl**dy hell' everyone was at it....cycling physiology was dominated by blood doping........end of.

That we now have Swart and Burnley not even countenancing it as an explanation and indeed discounting it is what you might call an entrenched position....

we are just internet punters...they are...eh...scientists

 

[Davesta]

Re: Re:

this is pro cycling...it is difficult therefore to disaggregate it from PEDs (unless you are a physiologist obviously ;-) )

Hehe!

i don't disagree with the above however let's look at our good friend (nay scientist) Burnley...he made a comparison between the GT transformations of Armstrong and Froome, arguing Froome's being more incremental (itself a joke). Look at the top ten of either the Vuelta '98 or the Tour '99 (Armstrong's breakthrough GTs). Armstrong's performances and indeed the era's cannot be used to make any assumptions other than, 'bl**dy hell' everyone was at it....cycling physiology was dominated by blood doping........end of.

That we now have Swart and Burnley not even countenancing it as an explanation and indeed discounting it is what you might call an entrenched position....

we are just internet punters...they are...eh...scientists

Yep, although he's discounted it as a throwaway comment, Burnley's assertion that Froome's transformation was more incremental is, well, astounding!!

There is definitely an argument for it being an entrenched position. I will reserve judgement in the Froome-study case however, until the paper is released...

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

this is pro cycling...it is difficult therefore to disaggregate it from PEDs (unless you are a physiologist obviously ;-) )

i don't disagree with the above however let's look at our good friend (nay scientist) Burnley...he made a comparison between the GT transformations of Armstrong and Froome, arguing Froome's being more incremental (itself a joke). Look at the top ten of either the Vuelta '98 or the Tour '99 (Armstrong's breakthrough GTs). Armstrong's performances and indeed the era's cannot be used to make any assumptions other than, 'bl**dy hell' everyone was at it....cycling physiology was dominated by blood doping........end of.

That we now have Swart and Burnley not even countenancing it as an explanation and indeed discounting it is what you might call an entrenched position....

we are just internet punters...they are...eh...scientists

bingo.

the worrying thing is how the likes of swart / burnley use the term "conspiracy" to avoid having to address completely legitimate questions/arguments. Most recent point in case of course being the discussion about the fax.
To start, it took a bunch of anonymous pseudo-scientific bone idle wankers to point out to them that the BMI on the fax was wrong, amongst other things. Swart, Moore and the GSK guys had had several months to look at that fax, and still managed to miss that. Unsurprisingly, the BMI was immediately discarded by Burnley as an irrelevant datapoint.
Bad science, willful blindness? Both are gross understatements in this case, I think.

The remainder of the discussion in a nutshell: First a rather normal legitimate question/comment:

BySpoke ‏@BySpoke 7. Dez. 2015
@jeroenswart @drmarkburnley @ewonsprokler With respect, you do know there are other issues beyond the highlighted text?

then Swart's response:

Jeroen Swart ‏@JeroenSwart 7. Dez. 2015
@BySpoke @DrMarkBurnley @EwonSprokler yes yes. There's also the grassy knoll. You haven't brought that in yet.

And Burnley:

Mark Burnley ‏@DrMarkBurnley 7. Dez. 2015
@EwonSprokler @JeroenSwart @BySpoke this is a depressing conspiracy theory. It's a faxed/scanned/photocopied document not the Turin Shroud.

Those responses aren't exactly the responses of people who want to get to the bottom of things. Rather the opposite.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

this is pro cycling...it is difficult therefore to disaggregate it from PEDs (unless you are a physiologist obviously ;-) )

Hehe!

i don't disagree with the above however let's look at our good friend (nay scientist) Burnley...he made a comparison between the GT transformations of Armstrong and Froome, arguing Froome's being more incremental (itself a joke). Look at the top ten of either the Vuelta '98 or the Tour '99 (Armstrong's breakthrough GTs). Armstrong's performances and indeed the era's cannot be used to make any assumptions other than, 'bl**dy hell' everyone was at it....cycling physiology was dominated by blood doping........end of.

That we now have Swart and Burnley not even countenancing it as an explanation and indeed discounting it is what you might call an entrenched position....

we are just internet punters...they are...eh...scientists

Yep, although he's discounted it as a throwaway comment, Burnley's assertion that Froome's transformation was more incremental is, well, astounding!!

There is definitely an argument for it being an entrenched position. I will reserve judgement in the Froome-study case however, until the paper is released...

I'll take that argument of it being an entrenched position and raise it to being an argument of a 'conspiracy'...in its wider sense of course...

oligopoly 'competitors' don't need to sit down and discuss increasing prices...its implicit. We don't need these actors to sit down and crate a conspiracy in the tin hat sense...its implied by the sport and by the incentives for cyclist, for journo, for physiologist, for fan, for...well, everyone....

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re: Re:

Those responses aren't exactly the responses of people who want to get to the bottom of things. Rather the opposite.

You left out that Dr. Swart was in contact with the lab to get to the bottom of things. The fax is largely irrelevant compared to the source data.

 

[sniper]

Re: Re:

Those responses aren't exactly the responses of people who want to get to the bottom of things. Rather the opposite.

You left out that Dr. Swart was in contact with the lab to get to the bottom of things. The fax is largely irrelevant compared to the source data.

thanks for proving my point.
"bad science" doesn't do justice to the goof-up.

 

[thehog]

Re: Re:

Those responses aren't exactly the responses of people who want to get to the bottom of things. Rather the opposite.

You left out that Dr. Swart was in contact with the lab to get to the bottom of things. The fax is largely irrelevant compared to the source data.

You mean that's the part Swart and Moore left out to make their assertion "he just lost the fat".

Moore didn't even realize he was dealing with two faxes until he was informed by the Clinic. Then they dismissed any claims and stated "we are talking with the lab".

Appears the bar is not very high in terms of verification for both Swart and Moore.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Those responses aren't exactly the responses of people who want to get to the bottom of things. Rather the opposite.

You left out that Dr. Swart was in contact with the lab to get to the bottom of things. The fax is largely irrelevant compared to the source data.

You mean that's the part Swart and Moore left out to make their assertion "he just lost the fat".

Moore didn't even realize he was dealing with two faxes until he was informed by the Clinic. Then they dismissed any claims and stated "we are talking with the lab".

Appears the bar is not very high in terms of verification for both Swart and Moore.

indeed...get to the bottom of things post-publication

 

[Davesta]

Re: Re:

this is pro cycling...it is difficult therefore to disaggregate it from PEDs (unless you are a physiologist obviously ;-) )

Hehe!

i don't disagree with the above however let's look at our good friend (nay scientist) Burnley...he made a comparison between the GT transformations of Armstrong and Froome, arguing Froome's being more incremental (itself a joke). Look at the top ten of either the Vuelta '98 or the Tour '99 (Armstrong's breakthrough GTs). Armstrong's performances and indeed the era's cannot be used to make any assumptions other than, 'bl**dy hell' everyone was at it....cycling physiology was dominated by blood doping........end of.

That we now have Swart and Burnley not even countenancing it as an explanation and indeed discounting it is what you might call an entrenched position....

we are just internet punters...they are...eh...scientists

Yep, although he's discounted it as a throwaway comment, Burnley's assertion that Froome's transformation was more incremental is, well, astounding!!

There is definitely an argument for it being an entrenched position. I will reserve judgement in the Froome-study case however, until the paper is released...

I'll take that argument of it being an entrenched position and raise it to being an argument of a 'conspiracy'...in its wider sense of course...

oligopoly 'competitors' don't need to sit down and discuss increasing prices...its implicit. We don't need these actors to sit down and crate a conspiracy in the tin hat sense...its implied by the sport and by the incentives for cyclist, for journo, for physiologist, for fan, for...well, everyone....

Ah, see, that's where I would disagree.
Entrenched position is one thing, but for us to declare it a conspiracy, we'd need to be sure that the parties are knowingly complicit, no? And I can see many competing explanations for why some parties may appear complicit - ignorance, for one...

I wouldn't regard an oligopoly as a conspiracy - the actions within an oligopoly are performed as a reaction to one another, and driven by internal & external market forces. The parties in an oligopoly are competing with, and reacting to one another, as opposed to colluding with one another (that would be a cartel).
An oligopoly is probably quite a good analogy for the doping culture in pro cycling, though...

 

[djpbaltimore]

Re: Re:

Those responses aren't exactly the responses of people who want to get to the bottom of things. Rather the opposite.

You left out that Dr. Swart was in contact with the lab to get to the bottom of things. The fax is largely irrelevant compared to the source data.

You mean that's the part Swart and Moore left out to make their assertion "he just lost the fat".

Moore didn't even realize he was dealing with two faxes until he was informed by the Clinic. Then they dismissed any claims and stated "we are talking with the lab".

Appears the bar is not very high in terms of verification for both Swart and Moore.

Moore said that he vetted the documents before publication. Dr. Swart has not put his name to anything that requires him to vet anything. Dr. Swart took Vayer's erroneous data at face value as well until it was shown by Dr. Burnley to be false. The paper is another story and it appears that there is a collaboration between the two labs in this regard. That is how science works, despite the false claims of pseudo or bad science.

 

[gillan1969]

Re: Re:

Those responses aren't exactly the responses of people who want to get to the bottom of things. Rather the opposite.

You left out that Dr. Swart was in contact with the lab to get to the bottom of things. The fax is largely irrelevant compared to the source data.

You mean that's the part Swart and Moore left out to make their assertion "he just lost the fat".

Moore didn't even realize he was dealing with two faxes until he was informed by the Clinic. Then they dismissed any claims and stated "we are talking with the lab".

Appears the bar is not very high in terms of verification for both Swart and Moore.

Moore said that he vetted the documents before publication. Dr. Swart has not put his name to anything that requires him to vet anything. Dr. Swart took Vayer's erroneous data at face value as well until it was shown by Dr. Burnley to be false. The paper is another story and it appears that there is a collaboration between the two labs in this regard. That is how science works, despite the false claims of pseudo or bad science.

They are now (although let's wait and see)...however this is 'after the event' and on the basis of it being called out

The comparison of the two 'studies' would have been laudable science...but that was never the intention and never a word was spoken pre publication of data to suggest that was the intention....

..........otherwise there would be nothing to get to the bottom of....

unfortunate use of the word 'just' though....