Re: Sloping terrain Re: Woman against Abelisaur

["Habib, Michael" <MHabib@Chatham.edu>]

On Jul 26, 2011, at 3:17 AM, "Don Ohmes" <d_ohmes@yahoo.com> wrote:

> 
> Heh. No, I have not offered my qualified observations of baby birds as 
> quantified empirical fact.
> 
> I was referring to "assisted running" as it is currently practiced by 
> humans in track training, and as it appears in peer-reviewed lit.
> 
> You stated that such a thing was not possible to do -- yet it is an 
> empirical fact.

I suggested that obtaining greater steady state maximum speeds in such a case 
was unlikely. I actually checked that literature when you cited it, and it 
would seem that the exercises are mostly focused on acceleration training.  It 
was unclear if the athletes reached higher max speeds.  In fact, there is 
uncertainty on whether the training does what it is intended to do (a common 
concern in sports training, actually).

But, supposing for a moment that the runners did obtain higher max speeds, this 
would indicate that one or more of the starting assumptions in my very simple 
and off the cuff model were incorrect. That in and of itself is interesting 
(and not exactly shocking). I also don't see how it's relevant to the current 
conversation.

> 
>> Regardless, there is a difference between distrust in the mathematician and 
>> distrust of math.
> 
> How could someone "distrust math"?
> 
> I just become skeptical when a mathematician predicts a reality does not 
> exist, and then ignores it when it does.

See above.  Besides, are you really going to just punt and argue that because 
you think I was wrong previously that I must be wrong now on something 
relatively unrelated?  Honestly, that's a bit of a cop out.  Let's watch the ad 
hominems as well, shall we? I made a prediction about power outputs, that's 
all. It seems to hold true, but it might not be quite right. Don't go accusing 
me (or others) of "ignoring reality".  It's just purposefully inflammatory.

Cheers,

-Mike H.