Michael Shermer: The Doping Dilemma

From the article:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* An alarming number of sports—baseball, football, track and
field, and especially cycling—have been shaken by doping scandals in
recent years.
* Among the many banned drugs in the cycling pharmacopoeia, the
most effective is recombinant erythropoietin (r-EPO), an artificial
hormone that stimulates the production of red blood cells, thereby
delivering more oxygen to the muscles.
* Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional
cyclists to dope: the drugs are extremely effective as well as
difficult or impossible to detect; the payoffs for success are high;
and as more riders use them, a “clean” rider may become so
noncompetitive that he or she risks being cut from the team.
* The game theory analysis of cycling can readily be extended to
other sports. The results show quantitatively how governing bodies and
antidoping agencies can most effectively target efforts to clean up
their sports.
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Read it at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma















J. Spaceman

In article ,
Jason Spaceman wrote:

From the article:

* Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional
cyclists to dope: the drugs are extremely effective as well as
difficult or impossible to detect; the payoffs for success are high;
and as more riders use them, a “clean” rider may become so
noncompetitive that he or she risks being cut from the team.

Read it at http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma

cynical rbr summary:

1) game theory
2) ???????
3) clean racing!

Less cynical summary:

Of "Neck" Shermer's five recommendations for creating clean racing, 1 is
honorable, 2 and 3 are essentially wishful thinking (as in, "maybe this
will work!") for a problem that needs a little less wishful thinking,
and 4 utterly depends on "the system of arbitration and appeals [being]
fair and trusted," which merely sounds impossible.

Recommendation 5 not only sounds workable, it sounds exactly like the
Chung Solution from sometime last year.

Of course, it depends on actually being able to detect doping, at least
occassionally. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to depend on 4, despite what
Shermer thinks, because the collective-punishment solution already
imposes the substantial penalty needed to discourage doping.

Unless, of course, the entire team decides to do it together in an
organized fashion.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

Jason Spaceman wrote:
* Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional
cyclists to dope:

Lemond invented game theory after he finished with Finite Element
Analysis. Or was it Franklin ?

On Apr 3, 12:36*am, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

Recommendation 5 not only sounds workable, it sounds exactly like the
Chung Solution from sometime last year.

There you go again, tripping on your "moralistic" desire to punish
offenders. Because, "#5" depends on #4, which you yourself admit is
wishful thinking.

Of course, it depends on actually being able to detect doping, at least
occassionally. Furthermore, it doesn't seem to depend on 4, despite what
Shermer thinks, because the collective-punishment solution already
imposes the substantial penalty needed to discourage doping.

Collective punishment has a long row to hoe when athletes know, or
even suspect, that someone is boosting and getting away with it.

Unless, of course, the entire team decides to do it together in an
organized fashion.

Which takes us right back to making bad rules and trying to cover up
for inept leadership with career-ending punishment.

Fair, impartial?

Yeah yeah, that's why Dickie Poo had to "get me a positive reader in
here".

Houston crime lab scandal. "Mismanaged" evidence, outright lying on
the witness stand in courts of law.

Conflict of interest with dope labs and organizing bodies. When is any
of that going to have "game theory" (gag me with two thousand words or
less)? --D-y

On Apr 3, 2:15 am, Donald Munro wrote:
Jason Spaceman wrote:
* Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional
cyclists to dope:

Lemond invented game theory after he finished with Finite Element
Analysis. Or was it Franklin ?

Who cares! I'm sold! Where can I get some r-EPO? I wanna be a r-EPO
Man just so I can get up those @#%& hills!
-Paul

On Apr 3, 10:36*am, "Paul G." wrote:
On Apr 3, 2:15 am, Donald Munro wrote:

Jason Spaceman wrote:
* * * Game theory highlights why it is rational for professional
cyclists to dope:

Lemond invented game theory after he finished with Finite Element
Analysis. Or was it Franklin ?

Who cares! I'm sold! Where can I get some r-EPO? *I wanna be a r-EPO
Man just so I can get up those @#%& hills!
-Paul

Don't forget the other items on the list, in therapeutic doses.

This is where some openness could help the population at large, as a
great deal of underground research has been done to find out what
really works and what doesn't. --D-y

On Apr 2, 10:36 pm, Ryan Cousineau wrote:

Recommendation 5 not only sounds workable, it sounds exactly like the
Chung Solution from sometime last year.

No it doesn't.

On Apr 2, 6:32 pm, Jason Spaceman
wrote:

Read it athttp://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma

Perhaps Shermer knows something about game theory, but it doesn't show
in that particular article.

On Apr 3, 10:55*am, wrote:
On Apr 2, 6:32 pm, Jason Spaceman
wrote:

Read it athttp://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma

Perhaps Shermer knows something about game theory, but it doesn't show
in that particular article.




Dumbass -


Sometimes I have a hard time believing SciAm employs him.


thanks,

K. Gringioni.

On Thu, 3 Apr 2008 10:55:09 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Apr 2, 6:32 pm, Jason Spaceman
wrote:

Read it athttp://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma

Perhaps Shermer knows something about game theory, but it doesn't show
in that particular article.

Isn't "game theory" just a euphemism for "thinking **** through."

Okay, "the science of thinking **** through."