1) Tell the manager to throw away his batter/pitcher index cards, or book, or whatever it is that they use, and never look at another batter/pitcher historical result again. I’ll get to the alternative in a minute.
2) Do the same for any other small sample size of historical performance. For example, don’t ever look at how a batter is doing lately, either yours or the opponents’. That should have no bearing on any of your decisions.
3) Never spend another minute worrying about the best lineup. Use a set lineup against RHP and LHP and leave it alone unless you change players or someone is injured.
4) Along those lines (#3), I will give the manager the 2 or 3 best lineups to use against RH and LH pitchers. I can even tweak those for GB and FB pitchers (remember that there is a significant GB/FB platoon advantage - it is just that it doesn’t come up very often).
5) Along the lines of #2, I will give the manager a book or index cards of each batter/pitcher matchup. It is comprised of the batter’s current projection, adjusted for the park (maybe) and the pitcher’s current projection (again, maybe adjusted for park), combined using each player’s platoon ratio and a log5 method. I might give him several versions: one for in general, another for when he needs a K, another for when he wants to avoid a BB, another for when he wants to avoid a HR or extra base hit, etc. I would also have two numbers: one for when the batter is already in the game and has seen the pitcher several times, and another one for when the batter is a pinch hitter (includes the pinch hitter penalty). That way, the manager, if he wants to compare the batter in the lineup with a potential pinch hitter, all he has to do is to compare the two players applicable “matchup” projection. I would also have a column of each player’s projection (displayed in some manner that the manager can easily understand, like EQA or wOBA) versus a RH and LH opponent. That way, for example, he can decide between two or more players he is considering bringing in as a pinch hitter or reliever, given the likely opponent or opponents’ handedness.
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I blame my cats.
They will be punished.
Do felines prefer AC or DC current?
Best Regards
John
I actually like that. Sample size issues aside, its interesting to see how much the account effects particular players and batting styles.
I would prefer to see career totals rather than in-season totals.
And I don't understand why this is so mysterious.
From the time we were little, luck has been used, rightly and wrongly, to invalidate outcomes we don't like. "You got lucky." "That was luck." But we rarely, or at least much less frequently, use it to explain our own successes. Hell, we still do it today. Beane famously blew off his team's playoff results as a crapshoot or luck, but I don't recall him (though he might have), attributing luck to any of the A's successes. It's human nature.
Additionally, as GGC pointed out, luck has often come with it a hint of mysticism. Luck of the Irish, Good Luck charm, Lucky Rabbit's foot. People mistakenly think of luck as a condition. When my kids ask about luck, I tell them that all of us can get lucky, but none of us is lucky.
Finally, luck is really only an explanation for outcomes, not an influence on them. The grooved fastball was not luck, but the result of a pitcher's failure. The good swing was not luck, but a major leaguer's skill level manifested. The shortstop's positioning and catching the ball were not influenced by luck. In most case's luck is merely an after-the-fact explanation of the result of events that were not influened by luck in the slightest while they were happening.
So the question isn't why luck is so frowned upon. It's why many of us continue to use it instead of a similar one-syllable word that does not carry the same negative or mystical baggage such as chance? But if you want to continue to force this loaded word down the throats of the audience, you really shouuldn't be surprised when some people gag on it.
There are no "baseball gods." To impute that sort of imagery is to misconstrue what I mean by the term "luck," and if I'm as guilty as MGL of writing unclearly, then mea culpa.
A random outcome is just that: random. It isn't caused by an intervention of some greater force that we mere mortals can't see; the whole point is that it isn't caused by anything at all other than the chance juxtaposition of particular circumstances.
Randomness, chance, luck, whatever we prefer to call it, is part of the landscape. Hate it or love it, it's real, and to dismiss its influence on outcomes is to inaccurately describe how things work.
Tain't me Steve. I don't give a rat's ass. I'm just astounded when people can't understand how it could be seen that way.
But do *they* play dice?
Exactly. And we do statistical analysis a disservice when we insist that certain outcomes for which we haven't been able to identify a particular cause are by definition the result of "random fluctuation", "chance", "luck", etc. What we could be doing is reducing the uncertainty in our analytical models, so that we bring MORE of those outcomes into the realm of "identifiable cause".
I am of course aware that not every cause IS knowable or measurable. As Bill James once put it when asked "How did Willie Mays make that catch off Vic Wertz in the 1954 WS?" - "Because he's Willie Mays." That's a fine answer. I'd much rather see statistical analysts say "I can't explain that" (which is closer to the real truth) than chalk something up to "luck" or "randomness".
-- MWE
We do statistical analysis a disservice if we lazily jump to randomness when more probable causes are identifiable. But we serve it with the respect it deserves when we recognize randomness for what it is when it manifests itself.
Three guys are walking down the street. A pigeon flies overhead, and poops exactly at the moment it's overhead, and the poop falls down and lands on the second guy's head; not the first guy, not the third, but the second.
It's a fool's errand to try to impute any explanation for the second guy's really-bad-hair day on anything other than randomness, and it strains credulity beyond practical reason to insist that there may actually be a reason for this outcome other than randomness, but we just can't yet identify it.
Statistical analysis is a wonderful thing, but it has real-world limits. And in the real world, random chance is the valid and accurate explanation for some events.
And when a real cause is later identified?
What is wrong with:
which has the virtue of being accurate?
-- MWE
"I can't explain that."
which has the virtue of being accurate?
Well, nothing, of course, except for the degree to which it implies that those causes we have identified are fixed and permanent and will never be overriden by future discovery, and it's only those things that abundantly present themselves as being random that we should be less certain about. Everything is subject to future revision as new information comes available, not just that which our current range of knowledge understands as random.
I'm every bit as confident that a single-case event of a line drive directly into the glove of a fielder is caused by randomness as I am that the repeated-case series of line drives off a hitter's bat is caused by skill. No more, and no less; both are equally sound, even obvious, explanations given what we know today. And both are equally subject to revised explanations if and when new and compelling information is presented.
In the meantime, calling what is 99.999% likely to be random, random, is simply being direct and honest and sensible.
Mike, they are equivalent statements.
The intent was perfectly clear, people were just trying to make it mean things that it plainly didn't.
But the fielder is standing where he is for a reason: so that he and the other infielders are in the likeliest positions to be able to catch the ball. There's no luck to that.
I think you guys who want to ascribe things to luck underestimate how complicated baseball is. There are at a mimimum four people involved in every single play (pitcher, batter, catcher, umpire), whose subtlest movements will affect what happens. On most plays, there are usually many different people involved, who will be executing an uncountable number of physical movements. Except for the ultrarare pigeon or sudden 50 mph gust of wind, the interactions of those men are ultimately responsible for every single thing that happens on a ballfield.
There is always some reason why things happen the way they happen. We just don't always know what they are.
Mike, they are equivalent statements.
I disagree. Random implies that it is unknowable. "I can't explain that" leaves room for later discovery. In fact, "I can't explain that...but I want to," is a common jumping off point for serious inquiry. "It's just random fluctuation" implies that inquiry won't reveal an answer.
Maybe we're afraid to answer the question of "Why did Willie Mays catch that ball?" with "Because he got lucky" (which, whether you acknowledge it or not, is at least partially true) because Mays' catch plays such a large part of his legend, and by acknowledging the part that luck plays we somehow diminish his legend. I say that's baloney! While Mays was lucky to catch that ball, that isn't to say that any dope could make the catch - it was the combination of Mays' talents and some good fortune that allowed the play to unfold as it did. But don't tell me that luck played no part, because it's just not true.
For an entertaining and informative take on the role of chance in the world, read Nassim Taleb's books. He's much more eloquent than I am.
The intent was perfectly clear, people were just trying to make it mean things that it plainly didn't.
What? He said - quoting directly here - "For example, don’t ever look at how a batter is doing lately, either yours or the opponents’." And the fuller quote doesn't help much, as he led into that by saying: "ever look at another batter/pitcher historical result again. I’ll get to the alternative in a minute.
2) Do the same for any other small sample size of historical performance."
When you say never do this or don't ever do that, people are going to think you mean what you say, and if they can think of particular circumstances that go against the general rule, they'll bring them up.
It's not making "it mean things it plainly didn't." It's taking it at face value. You don't have to do any tortured deconstruction of his words to make it mean what he didn't intend it to mean. You just have to read it as written. If there's a gap between intent and statement, that's not a fault of the reader.
MGL has a long-standing traditional of overstating his point, and then responding to those who note his overstatements by refusing to acknowledge there's a problem in his communication skills.
Right and Ted Williams was 'lucky' to hit .400. Williams 'skill' comes with the fact that a 'lucky' Ted Williams hits .400 and a lucky Ruben Rivera hits .270.
And no 'random chance' doesn't imply 'unknowable.' Indeed you can use (and use effectively) random distributions for things that omit factors you actually do know (but are too cumbersome or time consuming for their payoff). There's no obligation for an issue to somehow be 'truly random' for us to use 'random chance' as a tool to model uncertainty in an issue. Cards are a perfect example: the position of each card in a deck of cards is predetermined before dealing them out, and it's more than possible that somebody could know what they are. It doesn't mean you have to throw out probability theory when playing poker.
All "I can't explain that" does is inoculate you from semantics criticism which has no real bearing on learning about the issue at hand. It also doesn't encompass "I can explain that, but it's a pain and not that important to the issue," which is a perfectly valid way to do some studies. I don't understand why people view the word 'random' as some sort of all purpose insult. I do understand when they use it as some sort of metaphysical concept, I just think that limits its effectiveness as a modeling tool.
Gotta agree with Bunyon, those are not equivalent statements by any stretch.
I think this is where some of the claims that certain analysts are "arrogant" come in.
When you perpetually chalk things up to "luck" or "randomness", rather than admitting "ignorance" a few readers will [mis]translate that as:
"It's random, because if it wasn't random I'd know what it was."
When multiple readers find a piece of writing to be unclear, ambiguous, inconsistent, or confusing, one thing we can say for certain is that it isn't the readers who are at fault.
As one who writes at least a couple thousand words every week, I'm regrettably certain I'm often guilty of exactly the same offense. But the fact that writing well isn't easy doesn't take the obligation off the shoulders of the writer to convey meaning as clearly and distinctly as possible.
No, it doesn't. It says that based on everything we currently know, the cause of this event was just chance. Like everything else, including those things that we ascribe causes to other than chance, we will revise that conclusion if and when new and compelling information appears.
Mike, they are equivalent statements.
Not when you're writing for a general audience (not that MGL was doing so in this blog entry).
From a scientific standpoint, random events aren't knowable.
There are known knowns -- the things we know we know. There are also known unknowns -- the things we know we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the things we don't know we don't know.
Yes they are. You're just trying to extend the meaning of the word 'random' beyond it's statistical boundaries.
As someone else mentioned: flipping coins, rolling dice, dealing cards, picking colored balls out of a bag (page 2 of every introductory probability textbook), etc. None of these things are 'truly random.' What makes them random is the observers lack of knowledge of the forces that conspire to produce the outcomes.
Now we've had arguments on here as to whether 'truly random' functions exist, but that's not really the point. Random variables can be used to help model many functions which aren't 'truly random' but our lack of knowledge makes them appear to be so. Anyone else's views on Mickey Lichtman aside, I'll sit here and fight to try and remove the negative connotation from the word 'random' here, because I think it's an exceptionally valuable tool when it comes to modeling uncertainty.
What is with the drive to excommunicate it from the lexicon? If it offends people, then we need to help explain to people that there's nothing about the word that should offend them.
No they are not
nyah nyah nyah
seriously, I know what you are saying when you say, "Random variables can be used to help model many functions which aren't 'truly random' but our lack of knowledge makes them appear to be so."
and "flipping coins, rolling dice, dealing cards, picking colored balls out of a bag (page 2 of every introductory probability textbook), etc. None of these things are 'truly random.' What makes them random is the observers lack of knowledge of the forces that conspire to produce the outcomes."
In THAT CONTEXT, then yes it is fair to say "I can't explain that" (which is closer to the real truth) than chalk something up to "luck" or "randomness". are equivalent statements.
BUT the majority of YOUR readers (and the vast majority of all readers) will not read those statements in the context you intend.
They will read them in the every day context that most people make and listen to such statements,
and to most people, when they hear something chalked up to to "luck" or "randomness".
they
A: Think the person doesn't know, but doesn't want to admit it; or
B: Has sour grapes, doesn't want to give credit where credit is due etc...; or
C: Really has enough knowledge to definitively state that the the probability of any one atom decaying is truly random.
I fight my own writing at work the exact same way (I'm a lawyer), you have to let other people vet your work- you know what you meant to say- but if other people don't get it- you have to re-write (and re-write).
One of the better legal descriptions of ambiguity I've come across was an appellate decision which ruled a certain form contract provision (insurance policy of course) ambiguous as matter of law- because 2 different sets of judges had previously ruled it was unambiguous- but each set had ruled it meant a different thing.
Even that pigeon and gust of wind aren't random.
Luck and randomness exist in a relative sense, and the overwhelming majority of people who talk about them specifically refer within that context. When a ball on the margins is called a strike or a ball, that's not a result of the skill of the pitcher. It's a result of the judgment of the umpire. Since that pitcher has no ability to influence the judgment of the umpire, it might as well be luck from his perspective. When a batter makes good contact and the wind keeps the ball in the park as opposed to out of the park, it isn't a result of his skill, but a result of the force and direction of the wind. From his perspective, it might as well be luck.
And generally, that's what happens in most of these situations. The ball ends up specifically where the sun gets in the fielder's eyes, and of course, it's a result of the laws of physics responding to the interacting forces, but the batter doesn't have some special skill to hit the ball with such precision and the fielder can't will the ball to be out of the glare. It might as well be luck.
When a pitcher is on a good defensive team or a poor defensive team, and the same quality of performance provides different results, from his perspective, that's luck.
They will read them in the every day context that most people make and listen to such statements,
and to most people, when they hear something chalked up to to "luck" or "randomness".
they
A: Think the person doesn't know, but doesn't want to admit it; or
B: Has sour grapes, doesn't want to give credit where credit is due etc...; or
C: Really has enough knowledge to definitively state that the the probability of any one atom decaying is truly random.
I don't know diddly about the probability of any one atom decaying, and few folks I interact with do either. But perhaps I'm naive, but the impression I've always gotten is that the average adult doesn't get all weirded out by the concept of "luck" or "randomness," and infer any sort of ulterior motive or failing on the part of one ascribing luck/randomness/chance, but instead just interprets that when one says that something was the result of luck/randomness/chance, they, you know, say so because they think it was the result of luck/randomness/chance. One is free to come to a different conclusion on the merits of the case, but that doesn't mean there's anything necessarily wanting in the conclusion of luck/randomness/chance per se.
Yes but the average adult seems (to me anyway) to take a very different tack when someone says that something that happened in a sporting event was the result of luck or random chance.
The average adult also has preconceived notions of what is and is not under your or their control, and when someone else invokes random luck to explain an outcome that then average person does not believe resulted from luck, well... you'll get a lot of resistance.
Take autism and vaccines, no controlled study has found a link, and yet, try telling the parent of an autistic child that any connection between autism and vaccines appears random you may get physically attacked.
When multiple readers find a piece of writing to be unclear, ambiguous, inconsistent, or confusing, one thing we can say for certain is that it isn't the readers who are at fault.
I agree that the writer is responsible for the audience understanding, and I agree that MGL wasn't totally clear, but I think dealing with anything MGL writes is a special circumstance where you can't apply the "everybody was confused, therefore it's confusing" argument. A lot of people here (understandably) seem to have total disdain for his ability as a communicator, and I suspect go out of their way to find mistakes he's made.
I think if Posnanski or Neyer had written a similar thing, we all would have assumed he meant what he actually meant (i.e. that he was only referring to a very narrow understanding of recent performance). The confusion is as much a result of MGL's reputation as his unclear writing. That isn't to say that's it's not MGL's fault that he has that repuation, but I think what he meant was more or less clear.
It's deterministic in the same way the coin and die results are. Weather is a big complicated system, but it does follow the laws of physics. Certainly, it isn't happening because fortune favors one team or the other.
The average adult also has preconceived notions of what is and is not under your or their control, and when someone else invokes random luck to explain an outcome that then average person does not believe resulted from luck, well... you'll get a lot of resistance.
I sincerely don't intend to dismiss or invalidate your experience in this regard in any way. But I've got to say that my experience doesn't correspond with this at all.
In my 40-plus years of being a baseball fan, one of the most common points of fan-to-fan conversation I've found is on the subject of how luck is just part of the game, and indeed how that's one of baseball's charms. Bad hops, blown calls, McCovey's line shot going to straight into Richardson's glove, or Gonzalez's dying quail falling in behind a drawn-in infield, in talking about all this stuff I've never found "average" baseball fans to demonstrate any resistance to the notion that great athletes go out there and do their best, and often the win or loss turns on a little accident of fate.
And not just in the sports context. People I know talk all the time about being lucky to find a parking spot today, or unlucky to have gotten called for jury duty or something, and it's obvious they're not expressing a belief in any kind of mystical force. They're just commenting on the way to which randomness is a fact of everyday life.
In my experience, the average person has a pretty reasonable grasp on what randomness is, and how it operates. Maybe my experience is unusual.
In all candor, it wasn't remotely clear to me.
I think if Posnanski or Neyer had written a similar thing, we all would have assumed he meant what he actually meant (i.e. that he was only referring to a very narrow understanding of recent performance). The confusion is as much a result of MGL's reputation as his unclear writing. That isn't to say that's it's not MGL's fault that he has that repuation, but I think what he meant was more or less clear.
Well, I'm one of those people who misunderstood what MGL meant, so I'll respond to this.
I really wasn't looking for some nit to pick or axe to grind. Heck, I stayed out of this thread until it had been cleared up. But even though I was aware that MGL often speaks over the facts, his meaning was anything but clear to me for a few reasons.
First, just because his statement struck me as off doesn't mean it wasn't what he intended. Dig up MGL's positions on singing free agent pitchers. It's vey difficult - possibly impossible - to ever find him approving of any free agent pitcher signed because of the risk they pose to stay healthy. Either you have a bunch of kids, or you have an entire staff of Dumpster Pot Luck or it's an assemblage he disapproves of. By the math, each individual assessment of his is defensivable, but the aggregate is an approach to assembling a staff I find to be completely and utterly unworkable. Others have made this critique before, but I don't think he's modified. So merely the fact that MGL makes a statement that on its face doesn't make much sense is not grounds for me to assume that his words don't match his mind.
Second, I've had debates - not necessarily with MGL mind you - with others revolving around what small sample size can mean in detecting picthcer injuries. I remember eons ago (I think on the old Neyer Message Board it was so long ago) after Kevin Appier got torched repeatedly, and some said that didn't mean he was hiding an injury. Then he recovered and that side felt justified. Now again, this isn't a position I've ever seen MGL spout, but I know there are sensible, intelligent people out there that take this approach on short-term numbers. And I know (as the first point went over) that MGL can argue a position I think is fundamentally flawed, so seeing him make another argument I disagree with is possible.
Also, when a person continually makes the same errors in their writing (overstating his case and speaking beyond his evidence in MGL's case), has those errors pointed out, and make little effort to adjust, then I start wondering if they're that concerned in the first place with their problems, or even see them as errors. So he speaks beyond his facts sometimes -- does that mean he speaks beyond his opinion? Even when you strip away the overstatements, the actual beliefs at times seem a bit too much. To me that really comes out in his position on pitchers, but you can check the archives for his statements on the signings of other players like Dye or Derrek Lee or what-not, and even the toned-down spin job of his statements can be a bit much.
This didn't mean that I was sure he meant precisely what he said. Just the opposite. I was completely unclear. To come here and read people say "he was more or less clear" is in some ways far more frustrating than reading MGL's original post. Sure he's brilliant and does great work but his track record doesn't allow for a clear interpretation of what he said.
Fair enough. I shouldn't have added that last line. I do still think that the character of the comments to things MGL writes are not the same as with other writers, maybe for good reasons, and so the same principles can't be applied.
How about this: It was not written clearly. Still, I assumed he meant what he says he did in the comments. Perhaps based on his history that wasn't a fair assumption to make, or that most people would make. It just seems to me so obviously indefensible to say that we shouldn't pay attention to the non-statistical factors that go into performance that I couldn't beleive he could be saying anything else.
Particularly with his history of overstating his case, I thought he must just mean the raw statistics of recent performance. Turns out, in this one case, my assumption was correct. Who knows if giving MGL the benefit of the doubt will continue to be right in the future.
Um, isn't how that is supposed to work?
Isn't it true of ANYTHING that if you show you are generally good at it that when you screw up you will be given the benefit of the doubt, whereas if you are generally poor at it your screwups will just look like that continuation of the trend?
Seems like human nature to me and it seems like that is how things should work.
Mariano Rivera blows a game and even the most retarded knee-jerk Yankees fans don't say it is because he is a bum, he just happened to screw up that day.
But if Farnsworth, and his long history of bum-itude, loses a game it is probably because he is in fact a bum and that loss is just further proof that he is a bum.
Again, yeah, I know that's the way things work and that's fine.
I guess, I just think that MGL doesn't always get a fair shake around here. He clearly his an arrogant and poor communicator, but it seems like most of his threads devolve into arguments about that instead of the point he's actually making.
On second thought, I'm not sure this particular case is an example of that, it may just have been a genuine confusion in what exactly that point was. So, sorry, I guess?
Fair enough. I have no problem with someone saying ___ was a fair conclusion to draw from MGL's piece. I just have a problem saying that ___ isn't a fair conclusion to draw.
I have no real problem with it.
I guess, I just think that MGL doesn't always get a fair shake around here. He clearly his an arrogant and poor communicator, but it seems like most of his threads devolve into arguments about that instead of the point he's actually making.
Yeah, that does happen. I don't necessarily think that means he isn't getting a fair shake, because some people complaining genuinely didn't get what he said. (reads on) Oh, you make that point yourself in the next paragraph.
There is plenty of open content-free snark directed at MGL. That's unfortunate, because he does good work.
If you have a reasonable expectation to not be able to understand him clearly, couldn't you actually just post on his blog and ask him to clear it up for you?
Why poke your head inside someone's house, interpret something one way, and then go to some other house to talk about what the guy may have meant, when you are welcomed into his house to begin with, to have him explain it to you?
If it is 0 or 1, then we are discussing predetermined fate or god.
If the mean of a binary outcome is between 0 and 1, exclusive of 0 and 1 (meaning that sometimes that exact(*) set of parameters, conditions, behavious, and environment will lead to a binary outcome of 0 and sometimes to a binary outcome of 1), then what would cause it to be 0 sometimes and 1 sometimes? Random variation. Luck. The mean is not luck. The outcome, at that point in time, centered around that mean, is luck. And it's described by the binomial distribution.
Choose one.
(*)And by exact, I mean everything possible, except the knowledge of WHEN it will happen. This is the point after all, to try to figure out if something will happen at a future point in time. If you know eveything, including WHEN, then I have been praying to you every night.
Why poke your head inside someone's house, interpret something one way, and then go to some other house to talk about what the guy may have meant, when you are welcomed into his house to begin with, to have him explain it to you?
I didn't poke my head in someone's house. I came hear. If you have a problem with this site discussing MGL's posts, then contact the site administrators to ensure they cease to link to it.
And my posts weren't in response to MGL. They were in response to assertions by Dan The Mediocre and Elston that there was no reason to be confused by MGL's initial statement. By the time I waded through this mess, the original issue had been aired out and explained. There was no need to ask for an explanation. I objected to the notion that my initial confusion upon reading the thread was somehow invalid. Though my longer response as to Elston, what really set me off was DTM's post #120.
I don't have a problem.
What if his audience is his blog? Does he have a responsibility beyond that?
And, if he does have a responsibility beyond that, and if he allows you to comment directly to him, isn't the now-active reader also required to talk directly to him if he's got a problem with him? I don't get this not engaging him, if you have a problem with him.
I thought it was Treder v BL? Are you in on this too? I'm way out of the loop it seems.
In one sense this is, of course, true. It is the writer's responsibility to write clearly. That said, I assume we all have something we want to learn about baseball by reading the post, so what's the point of deflecting responsibility from ourselves? Maybe it's somehow true that we have little to know responsibility in the thing, but isn't it a whole lot more productive to place that responsibility on yourself and just find it out?
Aristotle is not a clear writer, but he is a great thinker. Do I think he had a responsibility to write more clearly? Of course. But when I find something I don't understand, (in my better moments) I don't blame his writing, I put it on myself to figure out what it means as best I can. Of course, there's a small difference in credibility level between Aristotle and MGL, but I think the point still stands. If you want to learn, make it your repsonsibility to figure out what's being said.
Why not tune him out, and move on to the next guy then, if you don't have the time.
Again, what's the objective here? I'm not talking about you specifically with what I'm asking, but is it to be the baseball equivalent of Bill O'Reilly, a yapfest for the sake of a yapfest? Is it to be witty like Stewart and Colbert?
If you don't want to do it with respect, then you have a different objective. Which is fine. But, let's not fool ourselves then as to what the objective is.
Again, I'm not saying "you" = "kevin". Just you as in whoever.
Aristotle wasn't a "writer." What we have are notes of his lectures taken by his students.
False. I don't know what the wiki entry is up to, but what we have of Aristotle's works (which is believed to be less than what he "wrote") are not writings, but notes of lectures compiled by his students. For instance, that same "wiki" entry refers to him "writing" the Nicomachean Ethics. He didn't "write" what we have; he lectured them. They're called the "Nichomachean" ethics b/c the notes of the lectures are believed to have been dedicated to or edited by his son, Nicomachus.
The point, regarding your comment on his "clarity" as a writer, is that much of the absence of clarity is attributable to his works being compilations of notebooks of his students.
I know he's got me on ignore. Since about 60% of the site has you on ignore, I just figured it was likely.
I think you guys know this isn't the point. We can have an argument about Aristotle if you like--frankly, I'd be happy too--but I don't think attacking the metaphor gets us any closer to answering the question we're really dealing with here.
That said, here's the Aristotle argument:
My understanding is that there is scholarly debate about whether or not he wrote some of the works. I think it's generally accepted that the Nicomachean Ethics are lecture notes (they are named, after all, after Nicomachus), but I don't think that's true of everything. I may be remembering this wrong, and I don't have my copy of the Metaphysics here, but in the introduction of my edition, Hippocrates Apostle--probably the most well-regarded modern Aristotle translator (great name, right?)--says basically, "Some people think he didn't write the books," implying some reasonable people think the opposite.
Again, the question isn't really relavent to the point on his clarity. It wasn't meant as a criticism of Aristotle, exactly--though I really wish he would say somethings in a simpler way--and the point still stands even if he didn't write them. Would you be more comfortable with saying Aristotle/his note-taking students were not clear writers?
As to whether or not the writing is clear, I really don't see how it's debatable. kevin, when was the last time you read the Physics or the Metaphysics? (Granted, I've only read bits and pieces of the latter.) You could argue that the reason he's unclear is the abstract nature of the subject he's dealing with. For instance, I find the Ethics, on a subject much less abstract, to be much more intelligible if still not exactly a beacon of clarity.
Also, there is obviously a lot lost in translation. Translators often have a choice between accuracy and good English, with little middle ground. For instance, take the words entelechia and energia . Most translators render both words--which clearly mean slightly different things--as "actuality." Sachs, probably the most scrupulously accurate translator, renders them as "being at work, staying itself" and "being at work." Apostle I think has the best middle ground in italicizing one and explaining the difference in an extensive glossary. Obviously, this means that any translation of Aristotle's will either be hard to read, inaccurate or a little of both.
Still, Aristotle is very very hard to grasp, and I think for reasons beyond simply his subject matter and the language he wrote in. Plato, for instance, writes on the same subjects and is an incredible, nuanced and clear writer though he's of course very hard to understand for different reasons. (All his works are dialogues, and not only can you rarely safely ascribe opinions to Socrates, even when you think you can (say in the Symposium), you can't safely ascribe them to Plato (in the Symposium example, who says Plato doesn't side with Aristophanes instead?)).
Something tells me, though, that Plato and Aristotle didn't have this problem :)
Again, totally irrelevant to the actual question at hand like everything I just said about Aristotle, but I kind of think Plato did/does have that problem. The context of philosophy is that almost without fail, when a philosopher has something important to say, he just says it. Plato doesn't do this, but a lot people want to read him like he does.
For example, Plato has Socrates repeatedly spout myths about the transmigration of souls. Does this mean that Plato, or even Socrates, believes this to be true? I'm not so sure, particularly when we take Socrates' support of the "noble lie" in Republic into account. At the very least it's not clear.
So, yeah, you can all just ignore this if you like. I'm sort of in love with Plato.
I agree that "random" is a very valuable tool when it comes to dealing with uncertainty. My issues, I guess, is when it gets used as a hammer, as the only tool.
For example, there's a very large amount of literature on sports performance and sports training out there. I'd like to see statistical analysts try to at least keep in mind the work of sports researchers, coaches, trainers biomechanists, instead of going back to year zero and trying to reinvent the wheel.
I think that you've hit the nail on the head here. We've had enough discussions about luck (or randomness, or chance, etc) that most people should know what it meant by that. If I'm discussing a pitching performance and I say that the pitcher pitched pretty well, but was unlucky, I should be able to say:
Zambrano was unlucky, he had a couple of Texas Leaguers fall in.
I shouldn't have to say:
Adam Dunn started his swing on time, but in this particular swing his bat was not completely level. It was .3 inches below his normal swing because his right triceps contracted .05 seconds earlier than normal, resulting in the handle of the bat being at 2 degrees lower, which correspondingly moved the head of the bat down .3 inches. The resulting force on the ball was at a 15 degree angle off so the velocity of the ball... (etc.)
Now of course if I'm analyzing Dunn's mechanics I might do that. But if I'm talking about Zambrano, who wants to read all of that? And even that comes down to the question of why there was a change in Dunn's swing.
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