Quinn is a second-generation disinformation artist. He takes his cue from a much younger Armen Keteyian who was largely responsible for beginning the late-20th hysteria about steroids some 20 years ago in his article written as a sordid eulogy for ex-NFLer Lyle Alzado. And almost 20 years after his screed he sat in front of Dr. Fost and apologized for being an accidental progenitor of the same type of disinformation Quinn - and those who do the same as him - spreads today. Almost 20 years later Keteyian sat in front of virulent anti-steroids buff, Gary Wadler, formerly of the world Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and found that Wadler had no scientific evidence to back his claims that steroids were the evil he claimed they were; found that Wadler had no idea that Fost’s work existed. Sadly, Wadler was reduced to pathetic phrases like, you’re playing Russian roulette with your health, and why would you take a chance using them even if they aren’t harmful?
Here we are, with scientific evidence before us in the way of a peer-reviewed study that clearly shows that steroids taken under a physician’s care have no deleterious effects on healthy males over the age of 25 and that every male, because of a natural reduction in the amount of testosterone produced by the body, should take monthly injections of steroids to lead a healthier life - and the study is shunned like an “amulet” - that was actually nothing more than a pendant - might have been during the Salem witch trials.
Also, see this post from the same blogger. It is too long and good to excerpt, but anyone interested in the historical context of drug policy needs to read this.
March 06, 2008 IN WHICH A SINGLE WOMAN DISCOVERS HER INNER ECONOMIST
This article advocating "settling" for a not-so-perfect husband has attracted a lot of attention, and there certainly is much to say about it. For some reason, it reminded me of a recent piece by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, which does one of the best jobs I have seen of summarizing the relationships between economic changes and the family. I find it hard to argue against their observations. Their conclusion:
So what drives modern marriage? We believe that the answer lies in a shift from the family as a forum for shared production, to shared consumption. In case the language of economic lacks romance, let's be clearer: modern marriage is about love and companionship. Most things in life are simply better shared with another person: this ranges from the simple pleasures such as enjoying a movie or a hobby together, to shared social ties such as attending the same church, and finally, to the joint project of bringing up children. Returning to the language of economics, the key today is consumption complementarities - activities that are not only enjoyable, but are more enjoyable when shared with a spouse. We call this new model of sharing our lives "hedonic marriage".
...Thus marriage isn't dead, it is, again, transforming. Hedonic marriage is different from productive marriage. In a world of specialization, the old adage was that "opposites attract," and it made sense for husband and wife to have different interests in different spheres of life. Today, it is more important that we share similar values, enjoy similar activities, and find each other intellectually stimulating. Hedonic marriage leads people to be more likely to marry someone of their similar age, educational background, and even occupation. As likes are increasingly marrying likes, it isn’t surprising that we see increasing political pressure to expand marriage to same-sex couples.
Lori Gottleib summarizes marriage differently:
Once you're married, it's not about whom you want to go on vacation with; it's about whom you want to run a household with. Marriage isn't a passion-fest; it's more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.
If that's not a description of marriage as a "forum for shared production" (at least in the post-industrial age) rather than "hedonic," I'm not sure what is. Her article is all about deemphasizing the hedonic function of marriage in favor of the more prosaic and productive aspects - and not just children, but also the more practical benefits of having a permanent partner. Perhaps her article should have been published at Cato Unbound as a response to Stevenson & Wolfers' piece.
I am currently reading Ian Ayres' Super Crunchers, and it's quite good. But in the introduction, he makes some mistakes regarding one of his examples of the analysis of large databases (the "Super Crunching" of the title). Specifically, he cites the now-famous example from Moneyball about how Billy Beane instituted a new draft philosophy for the 2002 draft, allegedly de-emphasizing the opinions of scouts in favor of a more statistically-driven approach. Ayres specifically cites the example of Jeremy Brown, the infamous "fat catcher" whom scouts hated but was drafted anyway on Beane's orders due to his great hitting stats in college. (This blog may have discussed Moneyball once or twice.
First, while Michael Lewis' account of the A's approach to the 2002 draft - especially regarding Brown - was an all-time classic of journalism, the philosophy of that draft has not held up well. Specifically, Ayres wrote that Brown "has progressed faster than anyone else the A's drafted that year," and then cites his brief 2006 callup. Those two sentences create a very misleading impression (especially the "has" tense). Brown did rise through the high minors quickly and was (according to Moneyball's epilogue) the first 2002 draftee invited to the A's major-league spring training, but Brown's career stalled soon thereafter. Fellow 2002 draftees Nick Swisher, Joe Blanton and Mark Teahen all reached the major leagues long before Brown's 2006 debut. Those three have gone on to major league careers of varying levels of success, but Brown only appeared in 5 games before being designated for assignment in 2007 (probably around the time Ayers' book was going to press). Brown in fact just announced his retirement.
More generally, the data-driven approach taken by the A's in the 2002 draft was not particularly successful. Another major part of their philosophy, as detailed by Lewis, was the near-categorical rejection of high school players in favor of college players, supported by old research conducted by Bill James among others. Well, we now know that those conclusions haven't been accurate for a while. ($$) The A's themselves have in recent years drafted many high school pitchers, generally regarded as the riskiest possible category of prospect. Moreover, as Derek Jacques notes ($$), most of the other prospects specifically identified in Moneyball as draft targets identified through the A's statistical analysis did not come close to making the majors. It is incorrect to say that scouts' importance to the identification of prospects has decreased in the years following Moneyball's publication - if anything, the opposite is true.
Finally, I'm not sure that Ayres picks the righ theoretical example to illustrate the data-mining that is at the heart of his book. While there are thousands of baseball prospects considered for drafting every year, the differences in their playing contexts (high school vs. college, different areas of the country and levels of competition, etc.) work against the idea that a large database of common baseline experiences can be constructed and analyzed. Baseball people look at their statistics, but the contexts are so different as to make it difficult to analyze usefully in the aggregate - which is what "Super Crunching" is about.
But sabermetrics does present a really good example of what Ayres is looking for: the efforts in recent years to build better defensive metrics. Whether it's David Pinto's "Probablistic Model of Range," Bill James and John Dewan's "Plus-Minus System" or an alternate model, the new measures of defensive performance rely on analyzing thousands of plays in the field. So let's pretend this was the example Ayres meant to cite.
March 04, 2008 I GUESS THAT'S WHAT THEY MEAN BY THE "OPTION PLAY"
I like this analogy:
[W]hy did the Houston Rockets draft Yao Ming? They couldn't not draft him. The lessons for financial markets are obvious. Drafting Yao Ming is like writing the disguised naked put. You see the money in front of you, you see the return in front of you, you see the potential in front of you, none of the alternatives are so glamorous, and so you can't not do it.
The comments on that post are interesting as well. I don't know whether the 7'4" injury tendency is real or an artifact of small sample size, but I know that in baseball, 6'4" seems to be the biological limit for catchers' ability to have long careers (may be $$)
I should have something substantive to say about the Democratic primary race and today's primaries, and may later today.
But for now, I listen to journalists and pundits complaining about the lengthier-than-expected primary season and respond: "More, please." Why hurry? November is a long way off.
Right now, I want to see the equivalent of a Game 7 of the World Series between two teams in which I have no rooting interest that goes deep into extra innings, in which rosters fall apart and players' assigned roles totally fall by the wayside - preferably one in which the preceding game also went into extra innings. (Closest real-life examples: Game 5 of the 2004 ALCS, Game 6 of the 1999 NLCS, Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS.) We can even speculate about a brokered convention, which is the equivalent of a position player coming in to pitch.
I'd like to believe that Megan is right and that McCain pandered out of a combination of ignorance and not wanting to tell a potential voter that her firmest beliefs about her child's autism are without basis. There may be more to it than that (or to the idea that McCain's science adviser is Don Imus). McCain does have a minor history with the mercury types: specifically, he has met with representatives of an organization dedicated to pushing the mercury connection (not that there's anything wrong with meeting with them) and sent a letter (together with Sen Lieberman) to Ted Kennedy (and the Republican ranking member) asking themto hold hearings on the topic.
(Note that this same organization sent letters to certain of the other Presidential candidates asking them to respond to various autism-related questions. The staffs of Senators Biden, Edwards and Obama (see the January 2, 2008 section) made sure that they didn't buy into the mercury/vaccine claims.)
That being said, McCain does not have much of a record on pushing the thimerosal issue (quite unlike the lunatic Dan Burton in the House). (Writing a letter to a fellow Senator is a reliable way of getting noisy constituents to shut up and keep the campaign contributions coming.) His campaign website has nothing on the topic (unlike Barack Obama's). Absent further developments, there is little reason to think that McCain would push the issue or that he really knows or cares much about it. But I do wish someone would set him straight.
UPDATE: Arthur Allen has more on how McCain is connected to the mercury militia. Allen also notes that "McCain isn't known to have any familiarity with vaccine safety issues."
In a recent bloggingheads.tv episode, Reihan Salam cited a fascinating article from the NY Times Magazine from a few months ago about the Syrian Jewish community. I have been meaning to comment on it since it came out, as it contains numerous points that are worth expounding. In no particular order:
1) The "Edict" is, in some ways, merely a more explicit version of the traditional Orthodox position on conversion. Conversions for external motives are generally not accepted (and, to massively oversimplify, doing so for marriage can be deemed an invalid "external" motive). And traditionally, families would mourn an intermarried party as if he or she had died. The SY Edict parts ways with normative practice, though, in wholly rejecting even the possibility of conversion. And - as the quotes from the article demonstrate - the motivation is based on blood-essentialism. Any religion passed down by birthright must by definition have a heavy blood and clan component, but the possibility of conversion and voluntary acceptance of the "yoke of the commandments" balances that out, keeping the focus on the ideals. The SY Edict decisively tips the balance all the way towards the tribal.
2) And this leads to another trait of the SY community, which is described obliquely in the article: by focusing on blood, other traditional elements of the religious community - such as observance itself - take a backseat in determining identity. For example - as hinted in the article - the SY community famously does not put the same stresses on Torah study for its own sake as the Ashkenazim have done in recent centuries. Nor is there any indication that other traditional demarcations of comunal identity - such as Sabbath observance - have that level of importance in delineating SY boundaries. If the ultimate expression of American Jewish identity is "It's complicated" - a maxim that has launched thousands of books and media careers, as well as paying the college tuitions for the children of a thousand therapists - SY communal identity is as uncomplicated as it gets.
3) Speaking of Torah study, the anecdote about Rabbi Ovadya Yosef is an amazing one. Imagine the Pope coming to a small American Catholic ommunity to vouch for someone, and further imagine that community blithely ignoring his verdict. There are very few examples where that Catholic analogy would work well in a Jewish concept. This is one of them.
4) Despite the universal prohibition of intermarriage, I think that few segments of the American Orthodox population (outside of the most chareidi) would truly cut off all personal contact with an intermarried family member for decades on end (and yes, this likely does contribute to the increase in intermarriage). In order for the SY Edict to work, parents have to be willing to buy into it enough to impose the consequences on their children. And they are. (The carrots of the elaborate communal welfare state help they buy-in.)
March 02, 2008 WHAT DO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, BASEBALL PLAYERS WHO TAKE STEROIDS, AND AMY WINEHOUSE HAVE IN COMMON?
Don't tell the children.
A longer version of that sentence below the fold:
I was recently (at the end of December) talking politics with a DC-based acquaintance. In the course of the conversation, he asked me who I was supporting in the upcoming Presidential race. I told him that I was still undecided, because - as my own personal strike against the continuous election cycle - I wasn't going to pay close attention to the candidates and their policy proposals until the calendar year in which the election would be held.
Well, it really is an election year, and I am still having trouble paying enough attention.
Basically, I'm not sure I really want to know "what it takes" to win the White House. I know that any semi-close analysis will reveal any candidate, regardless of party, doing and saying all sorts of things that range from the offensive to the ridiculous. A one-word, thoroughly bipartisan example: ethanol.
And I know the candidates have no choice, regardless of whether they are smarter than the drivel they spout. From what I've recently read and heard, the one candidate in this election cycle with whom I might have been more impressed if I'd been paying closer attention, rather than less, was Fred Thompson. (Which is not to say that I would've voted for him.) And it was not coincidental that Thompson's candidacy never caught enough fire to flame out. As expertly detailed by Andrew Ferguson, the modern presidential campaign requires a level of both substantive pandering and personal exertion as to screen out virtually any normal human being. I think we should replace the "anyone can grow up to be President" mantra with "Mom, don't let your kids grow up to be a Presidential candidate." (This may be an underrated factor in the increase of political dynasties - they're the only ones who think of the lifestyle as normal.)
Similarly, not enough has been said about the extent to which steroid use in baseball is different in degree, but not in kind, from much of what else goes into a career as a top-flight career as a professional athlete. "What about the children?" is a mantra uttered by cretinous sportswriters and Congressmen alike bemoaning the health risks of steroid use. Well, how many sports fans level with their children about the ghoulish injury rates among young pitchers, or the need to schedule knee replacements in advance for catchers? (Megan had this right a while ago.) And baseball is spa-like compared to what football does to its participants. (I leave boxing out of this discussion, which is a world unto itself. And let's not get into women's gymnastics.) These health risks are, if anything, more demonstrable than those of professional athletes' use of PEDs (especially the HGH that has so captivated Washington and the sports media lately, which has virtually no effect on healthy athletes (unless it's "stacked" with steroids)). We sports fans who like to occasionally call ourselves "grownups" have to reconcile ourselves to the reality that the objects of our passion are harming themselves for our sakes. Denial, or refusal to tell the children, doesn't make it any less true.
And this is also true with respect to music: we might not be so quick to tell our children that virtually all of the good music of the last several decades has been created by people who were strung out on drugs and/or alcohol. As Mickey Kaus said in his pre-Slate days (scroll down to the 5/7 entry), whenever you hear a musician say that he or she is clean, sober and feeling better than ever, the next album is guaranteed to suck. The most prominent recent example is, of course, multiple Grammyist Amy Winehouse. After listening to her music for a total of ten minutes, I can confidently say that: (a) she is a transcendent talent, and (b) her music wouldn't be close to as good if she wasn't quite so self-destructive. (Proof of both counts is at the end of this post.) Unless we want to forswear any good music, this is another truth we have to recognize, even if we finess telling the children.
