January 23rd, 2008
Let’s All Play Battleships
This outburst from Flloyd Landis contains some interesting points.
FL: Look, I don’t know what Mayo did or didn’t do. All I know is that the reason you have protocol for anti-doping stuff is because anti-doping is based on science, and science is based on performing tests according to certain criteria. And if you don’t perform to the right criteria, you don’t get the right result, and when you don’t get the right result, the wrong person gets punished.
Let’s see if I understand what Floyd is trying to say here…
- Scientific tests give a black and white answer.
- You need to run your tests to a fixed, consistent method or the results are invalid.
- If you don’t get the answer you want, tough. You can’t change the rules or the scientific method to give you the answer you did want.
Seems fair enough to me.
So in his case he’s arguing that they didn’t do the tests correctly.
In Mayo’s case one result was negative, one result was non-negative. The rules are that you need two non-negative tests for a conviction. Here Floyd ’s saying that the anti-doping agencies can’t suddenly decide to do a third test and damn Mayo on the basis of best of three, or if that doesn’t come out the way they wanted, best of five or seven or…
Otherwise dope testing ends up like Bill and Ted’s challenge with Death and you might as well sort it all out by playing battleships.
WADA: A hit. You have sunk my battleship!
Dead Floyd, Dead Mayo: Excellent! Yes!
Dead Floyd: I totally knew he would put it in the J’s, dude!
Dead Mayo: Good thinking, Floyd.
WADA: You must play me again.
Dead Mayo: WHAT?
WADA: Um, best two out of three.
Dead Floyd, Dead Mayo: No way!
WADA: Yes way.
Actually, that might just be the neatest solution.
Thanks to dR j0N for the heads up to the original article.
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January 23rd, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Sorry for you, but sometimes scientific test designed to give a black or a white results give no answer!
Live is not so easy as we wish.
January 24th, 2008 at 8:53 am
“sometimes scientific test designed to give a black or a white results give no answer!”
Quite right, in which case the result shouldn’t be ‘interpreted’ as either black or white.
January 24th, 2008 at 9:27 am
So you have to do a new testing!
After a medical test, I receive the result which says “inconclusive”. What should I do? A new test or nothing?
January 25th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Develop a new test, and test again, but with new samples as your inputs.