Here I find myself 100% in agreement with @Scienceofsport on the scientific issues but largely in disagreement about the policy issues

A good example how it is that science doesn’t always/often settle policy disagreements - sometimes it starts them
Our policy differences result from different views of “competitive sport”

Ross see it to “reward performance excellence” based on “physiology”
Well, yes
This is true like the stock market exists to “reward business excellence” based on “economics”
But there’s a lot more going on
Competitive sport actually has a history
And we can look at history to see justifications provided when it was created
And it turns out, it’s a pretty complicated & sordid history, reflective of the broader society of which sport is a part
That’s right - Sport is part of society
It’s important to understand that everything - absolutely everything - abt sport is a human invention

5000m? Why not 6000? 3741.2?
11 a side in soccer? Why not 10? 34?

You get the point
We make up all rules governing sport

Sport is a social construction from start to finish
One of the key rules in sport is who gets to participate & where

The processes and jurisprudence for the application of such rules is complicated (eg, the Canadian boxer denier a spot in Tokyo because she took time off to have a kid)
And these rules changed & evolve, as rules do
If you want to see classification decision-making in even more complexity, look at the Paralympics

Here is classification difficult, messy, contested, political?
You bet

Do the Paralympics work?
You bet

Are there constant trade-offs among inclusion, fairness, safety?
You bet
So @Scienceofsport concludes trans athletes should be banned from mainstream sport bc we can’t simultaneously optimize inclusion, fairness, safety doesn’t really make sense historically or logically
Of course we can’t maximize all values at once
Hence politics, in sport & society
For my part
Sport is a part of society and thus must reflect that society
It is not a special carve out where discrimination & exclusion get to run free (though that indeed is a part of its history)
If society accepts trans individuals in mainstream activities, sport must follow
How to achieve inclusion, balancing fairness and safety?
Sport is up for it
If it can pull off the Paralympics it can certainly handle classification challenges of trans athletes
But if not, I know some smart people who can help them out!
Will inclusion make some people uncomfortable?
Will it challenge preconceptions and bespoke definitions of the “purpose of sport”?
Yes and yes

In this way sport is no different than any other area where values collide - it can be messy

Get used to it
Finally

The issue of trans athletes in sport is really about what kind of world we want to live in

For me, I want to live in a world where human diversity in all of its forms is treated with dignity

And that means inclusion, even when it is challenging

😎👍

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More from @RogerPielkeJr

21 Jun
🧵
Some thoughts on guidelines for the appropriate use of climate scenarios in climate assessments intended to inform policy
Any scenario that is used to project a future deemed plausible needs to be justified explicitly in terms of plausibility

Presently this is almost never done
Here is an example of a plausibility analysis: cliccs.uni-hamburg.de/results/hambur…
Here is another: osf.io/preprints/soca…
The language of scenarios lends itself to confusion

scenarios can be inputs or outputs
scenario outputs can be pathways
pathways can result from many scenarios

Precision in language is needed, not for standardization, but for simple communication
Read 9 tweets
21 Jun
Supreme Court judgment in Alston
Here-->
supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf…

"amateur" in scare quotes in second sentence👀
Important passage
We likely won't be hearing much more about Board of Regents from NCAA in future cases on compensation
Another passage I expect to be hearing invoked again in the future . . .
Read 8 tweets
15 Jun
Core issue in doping suspension of Shelby Houlihan: No one knows what to believe!

1. Half +/- of elite T&F athletes dope w/ huge uncertainties based on best research: link.springer.com/article/10.100…
2. WADA has a track record of sanctioning innocent athletes: doi.org/10.1080/194069…

🤷‍♂️
According to USDA ARS 2020 saw almost no pork imports from Mexico to US Jul-Dec 2020

US pork imports from Mexico were 0.001% of total imports (and far less of total US pork consumption)

So these data say pork from Mexico unlikely basis for the AAF

Data: ers.usda.gov/data-products/… Image
Gonna have to write a post on anti-doping regulation and pork imports, aren't I?
Read 5 tweets
15 Jun
🧵One of the most remarkable aspects of science advice in the COVID-19 pandemic was how utterly unprepared the US government was ... I look back at how this happened from Bush to Obama to Trump in this post ... here is a short thread as well ...
The US government paid little attention to pandemic planning before Pres GHW Bush, who read a book on summer vacation in 2005 that sparked his interest
In fact, during his presidency in his public remarks Ronald Reagan only mentioned the word "pandemic" 1 time and GHWB not at all. Climate mentioned "pandemic" 16x, then GWB at 214
Read 8 tweets
14 Jun
I was curious
So I graphed percent of CONUS in drought according to the US drought monitor, data is weekly from 1/2000
droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap.aspx
Here from US EPA is the same data by drought category
epa.gov/climate-indica…
And here from EPA is a longer time series, 1895-2020 for CONUS
Note: On this graph up means wetter, down means dryer
epa.gov/climate-indica…
Read 11 tweets
10 Jun
How to make biomedical research (and biosafety labs) less dangerous and more ethical, post-COVID-19 thebulletin.org/?p=86600 via @BulletinAtomic
I've noted some confusion over whether EHA and/or WIV was actively involved with so-called "gain of cuntion research"

This article says EHA was
No one in gov't monitors or tracks laboratory acquired infections
Covid-19 aside, this needs fixing ASAP
Read 4 tweets

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