Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Tuesday, August 13, 2002 From discussion to sports-talk-radioThe discussion forum on Attackpoint has been unusually active the last month or so, and it seems to me like the discussion is de-evolving into something like sports-talk-radio. If you listen to sports-talk-radio, you know that it is full on unsupported nonsense and arguments based on logical fallacies. That doesn't mean it is uninteresting, in fact it can be quite entertaining. But, while it is entertaining it might not be informative.Here is an example: First, some background. Jeff Watson started a discussion about training by asking a series of questions about how top US orienteers train. Jeff wrote a list of very specific questions. The discussion generated some interesting posts. For example, Eric Buckley, based on his experience as a very serious competitive cyclist, suggested that: ...support from the federation and/or sponsors (if it comes at all) is the result of world-class training behavior, not the cause of it. How can one train full-time without these things? Its not as hard as one might imagine. The on-going discussion was really quite interesting. In fact, Jeff posted a note, "What great comments!" A few more posts kept the level of discussion "healthy." By healthy, I mean based on information and personal experience more than opinion. Opinion, stated as fact, is a sign you're listening to sports-talk-radio. Typically, the opinion-stated-as-fact is something you can't observe or test. It is a sign the discussion is no longer informative. Listening to a sports-talk-radio show you'll hear this sort of stuff all the time -- "the chemistry on the Royals is all wrong, there aren't any leaders in the clubhouse...leaders would make sure guys are running hard to first on an infield grounder." This is the sort of statement that you can't disagree with because it isn't based on anything resembling evidence. What is "chemistry"? What is a "leader"? How does some bozo on a cell phone have any idea what is going on in the clubhouse (it is fairly common that a sports-talk-radio caller refers to some sort of insider knowledge that the caller can't share)? What makes you think players aren't running hard? Does it even make sense to run hard on a grounder that is an almost sure out? Back to orienteering. In the on-going discussion about how much an orienteer needs to train, Jeff pointed wrote: With regards to 15 hours of training, I think that this is a bit much. I was just looking at Pasi Ikonen's training journal, and he does about 8-10 hours per week. So far so good. Jeff made a very relevant point, based on evidence. But, the response to Jeff dropped the discussion into the realm of sports-talk-radio. Sergey responds: I hardly believe that top orienteerers spend less than 15 hours per week. Look at their published training logs with some sceptism as they don't want to publish what they are actually doing. They most likely don't log all the stuff they are doing. I may say that most male athletes at top 100 are doing at least 60 miles/week average only running that alone takes 7-8 hours. You have to add special O training and recovery training to that - that easily adds to 15 hours. This is pure opinion-stated-as-fact. The discussion has gone from evidence-based (Jeff is telling you what Pasi's training log says), to speculation. The speculation is camouflaged -- it has lots of specific numbers which almost make it look like it is based on evidence. It isn't. It is opinion. It may well be correct, but it is just opinion. It attacks Jeff's point in an especially insidious way -- it implies (with absolutely no evidence) that Jeff's data is flawed. This sort of de-evolution is probably common in internet based "communities." The OK forum, for example, features a lot of inside jokes. Maybe the discussion at Attackpoint will improve in the future...maybe not. posted by Michael | 1:28 PM 
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