Scientific Dialog: Coggan Style

[DirtyWorks]

Ah ok, I thought youtube had to physically act to remove it.


So basically, anyone who is stating an opinion without seeing the video can really be ignored. Who did see it? Anyone?

Dr. Coggan, care to elaborate what it contained?

The science-filled language around his idea is immaterial. This sums it up nicely: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1381332&postcount=44

Blah Blah Blah. I curve fit some data and will goddamn sue anyone who critiques my curve fit.

To be perfectly clear about the takedown notice, Coggan is not being innovative at all. These kinds of takedowns are done all the time. The objective is the same in most cases, to stifle discussion. And no, there are no consequences for Coggan's misguided, and arguably wrong, efforts.

Acoggan's motivations are here: http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showpost.php?p=1381290&postcount=26

So, he's imagining this curve fitting exercise becomes an real-world application of some kind. It's within the realm of possibility already. Not novel code that can certainly run on the average smartphone with GPS and a spare GB of storage. It just hasn't been written yet.

Hmmmm.....

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

As are you.

It's the irony I appreciate.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

....quite possible, but given the quality and quantity of the "Really important and valuable contributions" that populate this thread it may not be that much out of line, in fact it may be a most reasonable response ( something btw we can both be accused of doing the very same on these very pages...)....

...that being said, Dr. Coggan seems to have, for any number of reasons, irritated a fair number of people on this thread....as HJ pointed out earlier in his perfect little summary, the man has trouble with criticism, but we all knew that...and I will bet that he even gets more wound up when he has to deal with "no-nothing peasants" ( a term I often use in my particular field of expertise....a field where the science is quite sketchy and every idiot has an opinion he hangs onto with a death grip....so sometimes things can get heated and sometimes the patina of civility vanished immediately and one heads straight for the jugular because you don't want to deal with idiots yet again )...

....and btw exercise physiology is a field with a history of sketchy science and an audience that has more than its fair share of know-nothing peasants....within academia EP doesn't have a big reputation and everybody dumps on it ( you know how academia can be )....so on top of being a TT'er, which in itself is usually a red flag, the guy is in a field that gets no respect ( and he works in a medical faculty full of doctor gods ....btw his situation academically is exactly the same as that currently "enjoyed" by my wife's and being the fighter she is, the chip on her shoulder has got bigger not smaller...so bring up certain topics you get certain responses, some bad, some awful but usually quite justified ) so maybe he is just a driven self-centred guy who has developed an allergic reaction to critics and his has an ego....big deal...like so different from everybody else on this forum?...

...I frankly enjoy his postings, and having been in academia I realize that his is just another opinion ( academia is full of opinions and dissent, discussion and debate is not only the norm but encouraged....)....so he can be wrong at times but again he could be right, especially when you are careful and ask the right question....

....of course, your mileage may vary....

Cheers

Oh no, I was annoyed by him long before this thread...

And I am a "know-nothing peasant" for sure...that's why my mud doesn't consist of actual, substantive physiological facts and dances...I just think coggan is one of the biggest blow-hards on this forum. Plus, he entered into a realm where I am qualified to comment, and he did so in a clumsy, amateurish manner. I don't know about science, but Wikipedia is not overly favored by legal practitioners for a reason.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

It's the irony I appreciate.

As do I...<-ellipsis for length purposes only...

Wait, you were suggesting that only one of us was subject to the rule of irony...how ironic...

 

[ScienceIsCool]

I don't mind being a know-nothing peasant. It can be fascinating having an expert in their field around to help educate and enlighten. But being a nasty person really doesn't help in teaching anyone.

It also doesn't help when you act like a high and mighty expert, and one of the peasants does his homework, educating himself, only to find that you're just being a pompous jerk.

Example: Dr, Coggan, some while ago asserted quite vehemently that gross motor efficiency improves via training in well-trained athletes. He made a fairly long list of citations, too. The idea sounds a bit too good to be true, so I went ahead and started reading the list of publications.

It turned out that only two were directly related to his assertion. Of those two, it was found that efficiency did improve, but left open an enormous number of unanswered questions. If, for example, a professional cyclist can actually improve efficiency after twenty years of training, that would suggest that there is no upper bound on efficiency since they would have been improving continuously. Since it's never been demonstrated that older athletes are vastly more efficient than younger athletes, this couldn't possibly be true. There must be some confounding effect.

You'd think that this would lead to some incredible/enlightening discussions with someone who does this for a living. I thought it would. Instead, I was repeatedly insulted and then basically, Dr. Coggan took his ball and went home.

John Swanson

 

[blutto]

I don't mind being a know-nothing peasant. It can be fascinating having an expert in their field around to help educate and enlighten. But being a nasty person really doesn't help in teaching anyone.

It also doesn't help when you act like a high and mighty expert, and one of the peasants does his homework, educating himself, only to find that you're just being a pompous jerk.

Example: Dr, Coggan, some while ago asserted quite vehemently that gross motor efficiency improves via training in well-trained athletes. He made a fairly long list of citations, too. The idea sounds a bit too good to be true, so I went ahead and started reading the list of publications.

It turned out that only two were directly related to his assertion. Of those two, it was found that efficiency did improve, but left open an enormous number of unanswered questions. If, for example, a professional cyclist can actually improve efficiency after twenty years of training, that would suggest that there is no upper bound on efficiency since they would have been improving continuously. Since it's never been demonstrated that older athletes are vastly more efficient than younger athletes, this couldn't possibly be true. There must be some confounding effect.

You'd think that this would lead to some incredible/enlightening discussions with someone who does this for a living. I thought it would. Instead, I was repeatedly insulted and then basically, Dr. Coggan took his ball and went home.

John Swanson

....gee that sounds like an absolutely dreadful encounter and very sorry that you had to endure that....was never trying to defend the man's every action but simply tried to point that even someone as "level headed, calm, reasonable and sweet" as myself could react very badly in certain situations....but put another way, the person you describe would have great difficulty surviving in a medical faculty, nah, it would be nigh on impossible....yet he is still there....

....so now kinda perplexed....


Cheers

 

[Dear Wiggo]

....gee that sounds like an absolutely dreadful encounter and very sorry that you had to endure that....was never trying to defend the man's every action but simply tried to point that even someone as "level headed, calm, reasonable and sweet" as myself could react very badly in certain situations....but put another way, the person you describe would have great difficulty surviving in a medical faculty, nah, it would be nigh on impossible....yet he is still there....

....so now kinda perplexed....

Really? For all the crying about psuedonyms, the relative obscurity of this forum and usenet (where the legend of asshattery began) would allow someone to be as asshattish as they like, despite having their name attached to posts.

Add in a challenge to his pet (efficiency) that borders on criticism, and you have all the ingredients for the responses noted by Swanson.

 

[Race Radio]

the person you describe would have great difficulty surviving in a medical faculty, nah, it would be nigh on impossible....yet he is still there....

....so now kinda perplexed....

Yup, everyone on faculty is perfection in human form. They should just carry a little card around identifying themselves as such so us little people can never question them.

 

[blutto]

Yup, everyone on faculty is perfection in human form. They should just carry a little card around identifying themselves as such so us little people can never question them.

....you really have no idea do you ....about how much infighting, political backstabbing,and preening occurs in a faculty like that....and that is only among the doctor gods...and that perfection of which you speak is not universal and as a result those on the second and third tier have it much worse, because as much anything they aren't gods ( much less than perfect ) and thus fair game to any and all shyte from above....

...."us little people"..?..coming from you that is funny, real funny....you are not that little...unless, of course, you feel you are....

Cheers

 

[Race Radio]

....you really have no idea do you ....about how much infighting, political backstabbing,and preening occurs in a faculty like that....and that is only among the doctor gods...and that perfection of which you speak is not universal and as a result those on the second and third tier have it much worse, because as much anything they aren't gods ( much less than perfect ) and thus fair game to any and all shyte from above....

...."us little people"..?..coming from you that is funny, real funny....you are not that little...unless, of course, you feel you are....

Cheers

Actually I do. We could go back and forth for days about life in the Ivory tower .....but it does not really matter as this thread is about something I happen to know even more about, Fair Use.

There is zero indication that Mike's You Tube video violated Fair Use. Coggen got it taken down because it is crazy easy to do and it shuts if critics.

 

[Neworld]

Perhaps if some of the bitter, bone-idle pseudo-scientists got
off their behinds in their own lives and applied themselves and
worked hard at something and achieved something they might
understand why a real scientist would chose to defend his
intellectual property rights.

Oldcrank, we're not talking about Watson and Crick level discoveries mate.

and, in the context of Coggers sordid past, defending useless previous physiological pseudoscience papers...he is losing credibility fast.

I teach people everyday, develop new techniques and medical devices and almost never seek to claim the invention. Why? because I don't think that much of myself and would rather just do my job.

If the Cogger wants recognition make his plethora of Master's students write it up for him, publish it to the masses as the senior editor and then let us give him our feedback. Maybe AC should stop playing scientist and enter the 'real' world. Just a suggestion.

 

[Hugh Januss]

....quite possible, but given the quality and quantity of the "Really important and valuable contributions" that populate this thread it may not be that much out of line, in fact it may be a most reasonable response ( something btw we can both be accused of doing the very same on these very pages...)....

...that being said, Dr. Coggan seems to have, for any number of reasons, irritated a fair number of people on this thread....as HJ pointed out earlier in his perfect little summary, the man has trouble with criticism, but we all knew that...and I will bet that he even gets more wound up when he has to deal with "know-nothing peasants" ( a term I often use in my particular field of expertise....a field where the science is quite sketchy and every idiot has an opinion he hangs onto with a death grip....so sometimes things can get heated and sometimes the patina of civility vanished immediately and one heads straight for the jugular because you don't want to deal with idiots yet again )...

....and btw exercise physiology is a field with a history of sketchy science and an audience that has more than its fair share of know-nothing peasants....within academia EP doesn't have a big reputation and everybody dumps on it ( you know how academia can be )....so on top of being a TT'er, which in itself is usually a red flag, the guy is in a field that gets no respect ( and he works in a medical faculty full of doctor gods ....btw his situation academically is exactly the same as that currently "enjoyed" by my wife's and being the fighter she is, the chip on her shoulder has got bigger not smaller...so bring up certain topics you get certain responses, some bad, some awful but usually quite justified ) so maybe he is just a driven self-centred guy who has developed an allergic reaction to critics and he has an ego....big deal...like so different from everybody else on this forum?...

...I frankly enjoy his postings, and having been in academia I realize that his is just another opinion ( academia is full of opinions and dissent, discussion and debate is not only the norm but encouraged....)....so he can be wrong at times but again he could be right, especially when you are careful and ask the right question....

....of course, your mileage may vary....

Cheers

Well thanks for the mention, and I agree with you to a point, but your argument runs right off the track where I highlighted. How can you say discussion and dissent (and btw discussion and debate are somewhat redundant, no?) are "encouraged" while you defend Coggan's right to stifle the same?

 

[JayKosta]

...
There is zero indication that Mike's You Tube video violated Fair Use.
...

-------------------------------------------
Is there anyone here who has actually SEEN that video, and who can report on what (if any) of Coggan's material was reproduced in the video?

Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

 

[blutto]

Well thanks for the mention, and I agree with you to a point, but your argument runs right off the track where I highlighted. How can you say discussion and dissent (and btw discussion and debate are somewhat redundant, no?) are "encouraged" while you defend Coggan's right to stifle the same?

...as legend has it memory loss is part of getting older....and seeing as I'm getting older I may have defended Dr. Coggan's right to stifle but frankly I don't remember saying that....if you can present that specific statement I will more than happy to apologize, because frankly I don't believe Dr Coggan has that right.. ....now I have defended his right to pick and choose his fights and the way he executes those fights ( which seems, from the evidence that has been presented and the examples I have personally seen, to be pretty hard nosed, but ok given the circumstances, and within the broad application of the letter of the law...until I see hard evidence to the contrary.. )...now if there was unlawful stifling going on I am most definitely against that and the person who would perpetrate such an action....

....now I understand people here don't like the guy or his style but if I have to choose between believing the "evidence" ( those really important contributions ) presented in this thread and Dr. Coggan, well, I'm sticking with the doc...sorry if some find that disappointing or disgusting or awful but that is it....

Cheers

 

[blutto]

Actually I do. We could go back and forth for days about life in the Ivory tower .....but it does not really matter as this thread is about something I happen to know even more about, Fair Use.

There is zero indication that Mike's You Tube video violated Fair Use. Coggen got it taken down because it is crazy easy to do and it shuts if critics.

...find below a quote from an up-thread post....

"Presumably for you to make this statement, you did see the video before it was taken down, and can give us a description of what kinds of material was copied from Coggan's site. Right?

Any figures or graphs? Tables of data? Images? More than a few percent of the words in Coggan's presentation? Unless one knows what and how much was copied, making statements about "fair use" are ill-informed."

....so the question is, do you have a firm grasp of all the facts in this case ( i.e. you saw the video before it was taken down and saw exactly what was copied etc etc ) or are you one of the ill-informed ?....

Cheers

 

[Almeisan]

Youtube doesn't respect Fair Use anyway. The risk for them is too big. If indeed a slide made by Coggan was used in a review, they probably aren't going to restore it, ever.

They are under no obligation to show certain videos. Coggan can be sued though. Which isn't gonna happen ever anyway. So he gets away with it. And that' why he does it, I guess.

 

[blutto]

I guess.

...so let me get this straight, you joined this lynch mob on what amounts to a guess ? ( and maybe a predisposition based on a personal dislike ? )....if true, I really feel for you, because unfortunately, you may have been born into the wrong century....

Cheers

 

[Escarabajo]

...so let me get this straight, you joined this lynch mob on what amounts to a guess ? ( and maybe a predisposition based on a personal dislike ? )....if true, I really feel for you, because unfortunately, you may have been born into the wrong century....

Cheers

Why when you finish insulting people you finish with cheers?

 

[Race Radio]

...find below a quote from an up-thread post....

"Presumably for you to make this statement, you did see the video before it was taken down, and can give us a description of what kinds of material was copied from Coggan's site. Right?

Any figures or graphs? Tables of data? Images? More than a few percent of the words in Coggan's presentation? Unless one knows what and how much was copied, making statements about "fair use" are ill-informed."

....so the question is, do you have a firm grasp of all the facts in this case ( i.e. you saw the video before it was taken down and saw exactly what was copied etc etc ) or are you one of the ill-informed ?....

Cheers

You can decide for yourself, here is a cached copy

http://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0

Cheers

 

[MarkvW]

...so let me get this straight, you joined this lynch mob on what amounts to a guess ? ( and maybe a predisposition based on a personal dislike ? )....if true, I really feel for you, because unfortunately, you may have been born into the wrong century....

Cheers

Veloclinic was not "ripping off" Coggan. Veloclinic was criticizing Coggan. You can't fairly criticize Coggan without examining his data. Coggan didn't like that.

There's no lynch mobbing going on. Coggan, by suppressing criticism, has invited more criticism.

 

[blutto]

You can decide for yourself, here is a cached copy

http://youtu.be/oHg5SJYRHA0

Cheers

....seems the cache shows that you are part of the ill-informed....yeah also funny, though only on a technicality, but still, despite all your bluster about fair use, firmly in the camp of the ill-informed...

Cheers

 

[Hugh Januss]

Why when you finish insulting people you finish with cheers?

He likes to cheer for himself when no one else will.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

....seems the cache shows that you are part of the ill-informed....

Cheers

Oh, I'd say the video is definitive proof that coogan is a tool.

 

[meat puppet]

....seems the cache shows that you are part of the ill-informed....yeah also funny, though only on a technicality, but still, despite all your bluster about fair use, firmly in the camp of the ill-informed...
Cheers

pretty please, explain me what on earth are you on about? thus far it's been all greek to me

 

[Race Radio]

Wondering what Coggan is crying about?

Here it is, with lots of Fair Use declaimers

http://veloclinic.tumblr.com/post/72839442721/for-educational-purposes-only-post-contains-only