PZ Myers. 2005 Aug 29. I guess the training for sportswriter doesn't include much biology. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/i_guess_the_training_for_sportswriter_doesnt_include_much_biology/>. Accessed 2008 Nov 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Monday, August 29, 2005

I guess the training for sportswriter doesn't include much biology

This WaPo column on ID is pure uninformed dreck throughout. It's rather tiresome how people are so quick to jump on the example of athletic performance as something magical, miraculous, and mystical, abetted by the beliefs of many athletes themselves. They are finely tuned meat machines, not angels (and that is not a diminution of their accomplishments; it's impressive work, and top athletes are rare). The author, Sally Jenkins, does nothing but toss out subjective impressions, leaning on the claims of Jeffery Schwartz. I've read Schwartz's work; it's old news. He's a DI hack who uses his legitimate scientific credentials to lend false authority to his religious beliefs about non-physical, supernatural elements of consciousness.

It's pointless to dismantle something this stupid, but heck, I'm just sitting in a bar with wireless access. Why not?

Posted by PZ Myers on 08/29 at 06:20 PM
Creationism • 5 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink
  1. Ahhhhhhh. Thanks, PZ. Blood pressure returning to normal levels now . . . .
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  06:42 PM
  2. Ah, but Michael Jordan was actually FLYING! And Johnson, remember his first name? It was MAGIC!
    #: Posted by coturnix  on  08/29  at  06:50 PM
  3. Is it too much to ask that these morons actually find out what they're writing about before they put fingers to keys?

    Or would that involve hard work?

    I guess it's so much easier to spout off and produce rubbish like that.


    It's rather tiresome how people are so quick to jump on the example of athletic performance as something magical, miraculous, and mystical, abetted by the beliefs of many athletes themselves.


    I guess that's a reflection of a sports-mad society with a tendency to place hero's on pedestals for worship?

    I guess science isn't sexy enough....
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  06:53 PM
  4. From the article:

    Athletes often talk of feeling an absolute fulfillment of purpose, of something powerful moving through them or in them that is not just the result of training.

    Perhaps they've heard of the thing called "a runner's high". rasberry I've had them before, and it's a wonderful feeling, but i've never been delusional to imagine that it's because of a higher purpose.

    posted a few more thoughts on my blog regarding the subject (the last shameless plug regarding this subject ;) )
    #: Posted by notheory  on  08/29  at  07:05 PM
  5. Be sure to head over to Michael's Frozen Custard for dessert tonight.
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  07:08 PM
  6. Athletes often talk of feeling an absolute fulfillment of purpose, of something powerful moving through them or in them that is not just the result of training.

    I've never been an athlete, sadly, but I have been an actor. Thespians often talk of "energy" that flows between performers and from the audience. As a dedicated materialist, I know there is no such energy. What could it be? Maybe... a subjective experience???
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  07:09 PM
  7. "What does it mean to 'deepen intelligence'?" PZ, it means that one feels 'embiggened'. It's a perfectly cromulent argument...
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  07:10 PM
  8. I see we have yet another abuse of Einstein in this article. Once again, in context:
    Now, even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  07:14 PM
  9. Dr. Myers,

    I played college football and I've been a martial arts enthusiast for a long time. There does come an almost magical point in your training when you get "in the zone." Anyone who has been there knows what I'm talking about and it really does seem magical.

    A representative example: you are running a series of plays and everything is going perfectly. It's not like the defense isn't attempting to prevent your advance. It's that you anticipate their reactions before they even think to do it. You take your cues without thinking about them; in fact, the reasoning parts of our brains aren't doing much during these times except being in awe. It is as if you are watching you perform flawlessly.

    That's being in the zone. And, unsurprisingly, it already has a perfectly natural, theoretical explanation. When one speaks of motor impulses, certainly there is a region of the brain that is responsible for the initiation of those contractions. But when it comes to coordination, that involves the cerebellum and lower brainstem reactions and reflexes. It is known that complex activities can be carried out faster by imagining them before you do them. Turns out that this sort of thing is why practice tends to make things easier.

    Essentially, with practice, more cerebral reasoning shifts into more brainstem (and even lower) circuits. This has the dual effects of offloading the higher processing centers as well as speeding up the reactions. The effect is much like learning to drive, in which early efforts required much mentation to even shift and eventually we can drive home without even thinking about it.

    Essentially, the same thing happens on the football field. The first time you get in a three-point stance, it's awkward as hell. With time, it becomes natural. The first time you pull across the line, it is awkward. Eventually, you do it without thinking about it. Ultimately, you arrive at the point where your actions are automatic. And when things are really cracking, you get in the zone, and your poor cerebrum is left only to ponder the significance of your amazing performance.

    It's fun and it's an experience everyone should try to feel at least once in their life. But there's nothing necessarily magical about it. And the sportswriter should stick to sports.

    BCH
    #: Posted by Burt Humburg  on  08/29  at  07:23 PM
  10. I had an "in the zone" experience once. It wasn't on the football field or the basketball court, though. It was on the couch. I was playing Halo and boy was I unstoppable. It seemed like I could have killed god himself with only a single sniper round to the head that day.

    </geek>
    #: Posted by Dave Carlson  on  08/29  at  07:40 PM
  11. Oh, but PZ, you yourself have admitted you don't know everything about everything!
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  07:50 PM
  12. When I first began to type, I had to stare at the keyboard; progress was far slower than using a pencil. Of course, I was ten years old at the time. With practice I got to where I didn't have to think about it - I could touch-type up to 25 words a minute on a good day. Gee, I guess it "deepened my intelligence."

    Of course, we have an old-school secretary in our office who can type > 100 words per minute. (It's really impressive to watch when she gets going) That must be proof of intelligent design.
    #: Posted by decrepitoldfool  on  08/29  at  07:55 PM
  13. 'The capacity to stand outside yourself and be aware of where you are'

    this article is written exactly how i would expect from an ID-plugging sportswriter: from the perspective - if not based directly upon - of John McPhee's splendous description of Bill Bradley back when he was shooting hoops for princeton. jenkins' article is imbued with the same sense of awe and wonder that McPhee did - except that instead of inferring that perhaps the player developed a knack for using his peripheral vision, Jenkins infers that athletes are designed to play sports. great.
    Historically, scientific theorists are sandlot athletes, drawing up plays in the dirt.
    Wonderful, so nice to have someone that understands me like you do, sally. next time get a "sandlot athlete" to help you with your homework.
    #: Posted by NiK0  on  08/29  at  08:22 PM

  14. Historically, scientific theorists are sandlot athletes, drawing up plays in the dirt.


    Me thinks the poor woman has had a brain freeze and what she might actually mean by sandlot athletes is coaches.

    Or at least what she should mean.
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  08:32 PM
  15. I wonder what his grant applications look like?
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  08:34 PM
  16. I am so glad you posted infomation on lungs. I'm no athlete (or scientist), but I could remember my sister training for running track by going up to the mountains to run. We lived on the coast. She told me she was trying to increase her lung capacity.
    Don't freedivers ( I think that's what they are called) have larger than average lungs as well?
    #: Posted by judgeMC  on  08/29  at  08:44 PM
  17. I hope that none of the "sports psychologists" who seem to be increasingly employed by athletes in different sports pick up on this nonsense - "making a connection with something deep within nature itself" - does this include "Be the Ball" from Caddyshack?
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  09:20 PM
  18. Anyone who has ever sparred has found themselves moving to block a kick before their opponent has even moved his foot. At first, it seems magical and mystical, until you realize that you saw him shift his weight in his stance and reacted. Of course, once you realize this, you now learn to look for it, and become better for understanding why, rather than simply attributing it to magic or good luck...or at least, truly great atheletes do, which may explain why Sally Jenkins is a sportswriter.

    Incidentally, a few months ago Mrs. Jenkins wrote a column on steroids in baseball which argued, in effect, that they were no big deal and baseball embrace them. It wasn't that she was pro-steroid, she simply knew nothing about steroids or about the traditions of a game that still requires wooden bats. Unfortunately, she has an unfortunate tendency to write out half-thought brainfarts without any consideration for whether or not she really understands an issue. Like when she wrote a column complaining about how Michael Jordan, who was then with the Wizards, still had Illinois license plates, without any trace of irony for the fact that she emails in her columns about Washington, DC from New York.

    What is truly unfortunate is that there are times when she writes intelligent stuff, so she's clearly not a dumbass, she's just too lazy sometimes to think.
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  09:43 PM
  19. Humburg, allow me to pick a small nit. I'm not sure that activities of which we aren't aware are actually taking place in the brainstem or lower circuits. Some of your examples may be routines handled by "muscle memory", wherever that may reside, but driving and probably most creative problem-solving are almost certainly cerebral activities.

    Most of my best ideas, including a number of useful and fairly complicated inventions, were delivered to my awareness partly baked from parts unseen. Consciousness is a somewhat peripheral process, and when you're "in the zone" it simply shuts up and gets out of the way.

    Back on topic: I liked the line "Athletes do things that seem transcendental". It's true, and having another beer makes them seem even more so.
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  09:46 PM
  20. "Horses carry much more oxygen in their blood."

    Maybe that's because they have so much more of it?
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  09:56 PM
  21. "But science class also teaches us how crucial it is to maintain adventurousness, and surely it's worthwhile to suggest that an athlete in motion conveys an inkling of something marvelous in nature that perhaps isn't explained by mere molecules."


    What could be more marvelous than such complexity come together over time from mere molecules? Some spirit dude making clay dolls takes away all the grandeur and beauty. It would be like coming upon a beautiful rock formation, just to learn that somebody had driven out from town to carve it. Such a thing would still be beautiful, but not quite so wondrous.
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  10:22 PM
  22. "Also, while a lot of aerobics can make our hearts bigger, our lungs are unique. They don't adapt to training. They're fixed."

    I'm sure all those people with lung cancer and other similar conditions will be greatly relieved by this..
    #: Posted by  on  08/29  at  10:26 PM
  23. I'm a freediver, I've started that activity rather late in life, and I can certify lungs are not "fixed". Training for apnea lenghtens the time you can spend underwater, the distance you can swim without breathing.
    Visits at the doctor's including measures of lung capacity show progress. You also tend to develop ribcage and abdominals elasticity to allow the lungs to take more space.
    #: Posted by Sophie  on  08/30  at  01:00 AM
  24. A much smarter writer than the sports guy:

    http://slate.msn.com/id/2124952/?nav=navoa

    also a good article on religious nuts

    http://slate.msn.com/id/2125225/?nav=navoa
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  02:30 AM
  25. >>Humburg, allow me to pick a small nit. I'm not sure that activities of which we aren't aware are actually taking place in the brainstem or lower circuits. Some of your examples may be routines handled by "muscle memory", wherever that may reside, but driving and probably most creative problem-solving are almost certainly cerebral activities.


    Given the speed of neural impulses, it is known that pianists play faster than the sensory impulses to reach the brain and back. How do you explain these data if the brain is responsible for every muscle contraction?

    BCH
    #: Posted by Burt Humburg  on  08/30  at  03:39 AM
  26. Thespians often talk of "energy" that flows between performers and from the audience. As a dedicated materialist, I know there is no such energy.


    Far be it for me to defend luvvies, I feel I should point out that the word "energy" had a folk meaning long before it was appropriated by science and made to conform to a particular definition, and it is this folk meaning -- something like, stuff that makes things happen, perhaps -- that is being used in this context.

    Which is not to defend this silly journalist at all. It's just sloppy to treat metaphors as though they're reality. If she wants to write poetry, she should write in verse rather than prose, so as not to confuse her readers (or herself).
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  05:32 AM
  27. Who needs lung growth when you can just turn around with your pals and throw spears at the incoming threat? I'd rather make use of my thumb than try to outrun my attacker. The "bad lungs" = "bad design" excuse the ID proponents like to say we use, as if that's all we use to debunk them is getting tired.

    http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/498035_6

    "The mammalian lung suffices for O2 transport levels required for maximal exercise in sedentary species, but not when exercise capacity is increased through genetic selection or training. This is because although every other component of the O2transport and use pathway responds positively, the lungs do not adapt to exercise. This leaves the lungs as the weakest link in the most aerobic animals, such as the racehorse. This weakness is manifest by insufficient ventilation, hypoxemia, and pulmonary hypertension. Exercise capacity is limited by these effects. The only stimuli that clearly promote lung growth (in the absence of disease) seem to be hypoxia, especially in the postnatal period, and substantial (>50%) experimental lung resection. We are only now beginning to study the potential roles of a number of likely complementary molecular-level pathways that will explain how this growth occurs, and, we hope by subtraction, why exercise fails to stimulate such growth. These pathways likely involve hypoxia, parenchymal and vascular mechanical strain, or both, resulting in activation of nitric oxide, certain hormones, growth factors, and retinoids. Differences as a function of species studied and of postnatal age are serious confounding factors that must be accounted for. It will be a major challenge to build a coherent model of how all of these components come together in response to hypoxia and lung resection, especially in vivo and even more so for humans, and why exercise apparently fails to elicit such a response."
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  06:11 AM
  28. I used to get that feeling when I was studying Tae-Kwon-Do and sparring. I think it had something to do with andrenaline. Just a guess. I think this article is just another example of athlete worship in this country. I wonder if the writer has ever engaged in any sort of sustained athletic endeavor? Seems unlikely to me.
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  06:24 AM
  29. For those so inclined:


    Sally Jenkins:
    Editors:
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  07:11 AM
  30. "How can you look at the beautiful, coordinated arrangement of a high jumper and NOT think that body is organized that way by design?"

    Well, high-jumping is an activity humans choose to do because we're equipped to do it, not the other way around. I don't think His Holy Al Dente-ness "designed" us to be volleyball players, but rather that we came up with volleyball because it's a fun combination of actions humans can do. (Turns out it's also hard on shoulders, knees, and ankles, but that's another issue.)

    The athletes-as-evidence-of-ID argument seems to say, "Humans who are really good at doing things humans do are evidence that someting superhuman was involved."
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  07:30 AM
  31. If talents are now evidence of Intelligent Design, does that mean that serial killers like Jack the Ripper, who was also very good at what he did, were similarly designed? I bet he got "in the zone" too.
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  07:51 AM
  32. I watched a debate with Mr. Schwartz in it once. I not only disagree with him, I find him to be mentally ill.

    The mere questioning of his beliefs tends to make the guy almost cry, and he gets quite angry as well and shakes. This is not just the reactions of someone claiming someone else has misspoke about the general premise he has stated, but is actually a response to people asking him to back-up his ideas in a scientific manner.

    I know why the guy believes in the spirit so fully, and this would be because he is in-fact himself rather "spooky".
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  09:10 AM
  33. My jazz band has developed telepathy. That's right! We can read each other's thoughts! With just a glance from my fellows I know exactly when the drummer is going to change rhythms, when the pianist is going to finish his solo and when the guitar player wants to take the energy up a notch or two.
    Conclusion: Telepathy is real, folks! And it was designed too! How could all this come about randomly?
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  09:29 AM
  34. I have to say, that's a fantastic name for a jazz band. the Telepathic Jazz Quartet (or whatever).

    I am always amazed at jazz telepathy. Nothing so wonderful could have arisen by mere chance after all, long hours of practice and years of training had nothing to do with it i'm sure.
    #: Posted by notheory  on  08/30  at  09:42 AM
  35. I recently discovered the power of Jazzercise on the universe. The vibrations from the Jazz movements (flick-kick and heel-hop, especially) "explores... the boundaries of physiology and neuroscience" and are generators of the very processes of creation and evolution, as I understand it. So maybe this athletes and "intrinsic (molecular) intelligence" is true. After all, some of the commenters here are world class athletes who clearly have more of this type of intelligence than I, a mere jazzerciser.

    Or to put it more succinctly, What Would Tiger Do?
    #: Posted by Bob Davis  on  08/30  at  09:53 AM
  36. So, does this mean that the whole point of creation is...Monday Night Football? Seems a tad excessive, doesn't it?
    #: Posted by Jeff Durkin  on  08/30  at  10:12 AM
  37. "We are molecules and energy stitched together by history."

    Beautiful.
    #: Posted by Keith  on  08/30  at  10:43 AM
  38. Why just athletes? What about actors and musicians? When I was a youngster in HS, I played the saxamophone. Every year, we had ensemble "contests." Invariably, the combos that I was a part of did really well. During practices we could never get it together, but on contest day, it all fit together and we would play it extremly well. Any subsequent performances were not as good because the stakes weren't high. If that isn't an example of "deepening our intelligence" I don't know what is.

    What do you mean it isn't? Then I don't know what that phrase means either...
    #: Posted by DouglasG  on  08/30  at  12:32 PM
  39. The fact that Sally Jenkins can't explain the ability of athletes to reinterpret physical events from moment to moment is telling. What she's describing is something called "thought" or "thinking". She seems to be entirely unaware of this rather common human features, the ability to think. It seems to be a common disability among journalists nowadays.
    #: Posted by QrazyQat  on  08/30  at  12:36 PM
  40. The phenomenon of thoughtless action and feeling at one with whatever the action is seems to be better described through Zen Buddhism than Western "God's doing it". - And Zen tradition, which has developed this much further than any western religious tradition, does not require an intelligent supernatural force to make it happen, just being in tune with the universe, or whatever.

    Mihalyi Czisnekmihalyi (Spelling?) a psychologist wrote a book called "Flow" that explores this state of mind in a scientific manner. Nothing supernatural needed.

    Also, when talking about collections of molecules doing amazing things, look at other animals. A male gorrilla can bench press two tons without breaking a sweat. A cheetah can outsprint any human. Hell, a bear can for that matter! An average chimpanzee is far stronger and more agile than any human athelete. So, really it's just that humans are easily impressed.

    As a musician and a visual artist, I've experienced the tracendental state where the music or art coming out of me and I'm not really aware of making decisions. The key? practice practice practice and relaxation.
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  01:42 PM
  41. I used to be a sportswriter myself, long ago, and I hung around with some of the very greatest that ever were, and none of them ever talked like that to me.

    Of course, they weren't trying to get in my pants, which is probably a difference between my experience and Jenkins'.
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  01:46 PM
  42. So God's a jock and he makes althletes do things that aren't physically possible. Lance Armstrong isn't an amazing athlete, he's a godpuppet. I have less and less in common with this "God" jerk. Something tells me the FSM doesn't spend much time diddling with sports. But a pasta that transcends culinary delight - that's a worthy use of divine intervention.
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  01:58 PM
  43. another thing on atheletes: good ones don't get called for fouls that average atheletes get called for. Referees cut you slack if you're good, further boosting legends of prowess:

    for example - when Michael Jordan would travel halfway across the court without dribbling the ball - he's flying. Anybody else: travelling.

    When Deon Sanders would pull at a receiver's arms, jersey, wave his hands in his face and interfere with the running of the route, it's good defense. Anybody else: pass interference

    In football, if one team is doing better than the other and is playing a cleaner game, refs will overlook holding calls and the like, and give them the benefit of the doubt on completions, and in-or-out-of-bounds calls, but if you are the sloppy team, they'll start calling every little thing and even start hallucinating penalties, and call catches incomplete when they are complete.

    And, yes I'm a Raider's fan (born in Oakland) and I really don't like the Patriots.
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  02:12 PM
  44. speaking of craptastic editorials espousing ID - the morris county, nj daily record just seriously embarassed itself.

    <a href="http://pharyngula.org/index?URL=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_action=doc&p_docid=10C4721AAF0AB1B0&p_docnum=1&p_theme=gannett&s_site=dailyrecord&p_product=MDRB ">for your head-exploding pleasure.</a>
    #: Posted by aneides  on  08/30  at  02:39 PM
  45. Religion is truth because you say so and Science is truth because it shows so.

    If there is a dimension of reality that is beyond our senses then it is impossible to measure or say anything of certainty about. Feeling ourselves to be fantastically alive in the moment, in a peak athletic experience, is a grand state, beyond the mere sum of its parts, but not quantifiable, no matter what day-dreamy speculation might suggest about such a state.

    All matter consists mostly of empty space: put in that space whatever charms your heart--just don't ask it to pose for a picture.

    +++
    #: Posted by MJS  on  08/30  at  02:54 PM
  46. And WaPo has no way to talk back to these morons. Maybe the Post wants its people to be immune from feedback
    #: Posted by  on  08/30  at  03:56 PM
  47. I don't see where anyone gets the idea that the sense of being "on the beam" is magical, mystical, or that studying it is new.

    Here's one great book, byt the former head of the psych program at University of Chicago, though it's getting dated now:

    Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
    #: Posted by covington  on  08/30  at  05:52 PM
  48. Athletes do not ever violate the laws of physics, chemistry, or biology.


    And many of the improvements are a direct result of better comprehending how the human body functions and reacts to those laws.
    #: Posted by mattH  on  08/30  at  08:43 PM
  49. How about if we substitute "porn stars" for "athletes"? Suddenly, it all makes sense! Hallelujah!
    #: Posted by  on  08/31  at  07:02 AM
  50. Race driving, football, running . . . what sport did Sally Jenkins do?

    Maybe that's the problem.
    #: Posted by  on  08/31  at  02:05 PM
  51. Hmm, I propose The Fellowship of Pastafarian Athletes, who attribute success to good genes, good coaching, hard work and lots of pasta. And no cheating, which includes divine intervention. The FSM does not play favorites with his noodly appendage.
    #: Posted by  on  09/04  at  10:11 AM