1. Just recently, I picked up a book called "The Physics of Baseball," by Robert Adair.
Early on, Professor Adair explains how a physicist goes about studying a problem:
"We cannot calculate from first principles the character of the collision of an ash bat with a sphere made up of layers of different tightly wound yarns, nor do we have any precise understanding of the effect of the airstream on the flight of that sphere with curious yin-yang pattern of stitches."
2. Adair goes on to clarifies that he must construct plausible models of those interactions that play a part in baseball which do not violate basic principles of mechanics.
a. "It is necessary for the models to touch the results of observations- of the results of the controlled observations called experiments- at some point so that the model can be more precisely defined and used to interpolate known results or to extrapolate such results."
Such is science; that is the way science is done.
Notice, it is not done by assumption and conjecture, as so much politically-based science is regularly carried out.
3. "Baseball, albeit rich in anecdote, has not been subject to extensive quantitative studies of its mechanics, hence, models of baseball are not as well founded as they might be."
Why? Well, here we enter the realm of economics for the explanation. Capitalism is the reason. "...better analyses have been made of golf, probably because there are economic advantages to the support of research by manufacturers who might make and sell better balls and better clubs.
Get that? It is the profit motive, capitalism, that improves quality, and supports knowledge.
a. Now, baseball, on the other hand, is totalitarian, in that baseballs, and, largely, baseball bats are made to specifications set down by major league officials. Dictatorships, and command-and-control economies suffer from the same stagnation.
4. How to approach a study of baseball? No matter the experience relied upon, the explanations and accounts of past incidents, the model rarely corresponds to the reality of the system itself.
That being said, if the model is well chosen, and represents the important aspects of the question under discussion, it may, in fact, prove useful. Of course, even conclusions drawn in a logically impeccable manner may be flawed by aspects of the model imagined.
a. The more of either emotion, or of politics, involved in drawing up the model, the less accurate we can expect our conclusions to be.
5. The idea of investigating baseball by way of science is a fascinating idea, but the warning can not be emphasized enough: unless one is able to perform experiments, reproducible experiments, comparing quantitative aspects, any presumed results can only approximate reality, and conclusions have various degrees of reliability. Apply that warning to questions that cannot be verified in the laboratory or by direct observation.
6. In "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding," David Hume argued that if we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion!. . .
a. And philosopher Michael Devitt, to mention but one, continues to proclaim that there is only one way of knowing, the empirical way that is the basis of science!
7. The problems in studying baseball are, curiously, applicable to those in far more respectable precincts, such as quantum mechanics: The temptation is to guess and apply higher forms of mathematics, and claim such as 'proof.'
a. As is true of so many ideas of quantum mechanics, such as the wave function of the universe, it cannot be seen, measured, assessed, or tested. Physicists have found it remarkably easy to pass from speculation to the conviction that said theories actually is. The use of higher mathematics combined with words such as imaginary and probabilistic processes, is what gives the air of pontifical mystification.
b. As a general explanation, arguments follow from assumptions, and assumptions follow from beliefs, and very rarely- perhaps never- do beliefs reflect an agenda determined entirely by the facts. No less than the doctrines of religious belief, the doctrines of quantum cosmology are what they seem: biased, partial, inconclusive, and largely in the service of passionate but unexamined conviction.
c. Quantum cosmology is a branch of mathematical metaphysics that provides no cause for the emergence of the universe, the how, nor reason thereof, the why. If the mystification induced by its mathematics were removed from the subject, what remains would appear remarkably similar to the various creation myths in which the origin of the universe is attributed to sexual congress between primordial deities.
David Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."
So, what is the lesson?
Simply this: take care, when the belief overtakes us, that the human mind can answer all questions.
Early on, Professor Adair explains how a physicist goes about studying a problem:
"We cannot calculate from first principles the character of the collision of an ash bat with a sphere made up of layers of different tightly wound yarns, nor do we have any precise understanding of the effect of the airstream on the flight of that sphere with curious yin-yang pattern of stitches."
2. Adair goes on to clarifies that he must construct plausible models of those interactions that play a part in baseball which do not violate basic principles of mechanics.
a. "It is necessary for the models to touch the results of observations- of the results of the controlled observations called experiments- at some point so that the model can be more precisely defined and used to interpolate known results or to extrapolate such results."
Such is science; that is the way science is done.
Notice, it is not done by assumption and conjecture, as so much politically-based science is regularly carried out.
3. "Baseball, albeit rich in anecdote, has not been subject to extensive quantitative studies of its mechanics, hence, models of baseball are not as well founded as they might be."
Why? Well, here we enter the realm of economics for the explanation. Capitalism is the reason. "...better analyses have been made of golf, probably because there are economic advantages to the support of research by manufacturers who might make and sell better balls and better clubs.
Get that? It is the profit motive, capitalism, that improves quality, and supports knowledge.
a. Now, baseball, on the other hand, is totalitarian, in that baseballs, and, largely, baseball bats are made to specifications set down by major league officials. Dictatorships, and command-and-control economies suffer from the same stagnation.
4. How to approach a study of baseball? No matter the experience relied upon, the explanations and accounts of past incidents, the model rarely corresponds to the reality of the system itself.
That being said, if the model is well chosen, and represents the important aspects of the question under discussion, it may, in fact, prove useful. Of course, even conclusions drawn in a logically impeccable manner may be flawed by aspects of the model imagined.
a. The more of either emotion, or of politics, involved in drawing up the model, the less accurate we can expect our conclusions to be.
5. The idea of investigating baseball by way of science is a fascinating idea, but the warning can not be emphasized enough: unless one is able to perform experiments, reproducible experiments, comparing quantitative aspects, any presumed results can only approximate reality, and conclusions have various degrees of reliability. Apply that warning to questions that cannot be verified in the laboratory or by direct observation.
6. In "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding," David Hume argued that if we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion!. . .
a. And philosopher Michael Devitt, to mention but one, continues to proclaim that there is only one way of knowing, the empirical way that is the basis of science!
7. The problems in studying baseball are, curiously, applicable to those in far more respectable precincts, such as quantum mechanics: The temptation is to guess and apply higher forms of mathematics, and claim such as 'proof.'
a. As is true of so many ideas of quantum mechanics, such as the wave function of the universe, it cannot be seen, measured, assessed, or tested. Physicists have found it remarkably easy to pass from speculation to the conviction that said theories actually is. The use of higher mathematics combined with words such as imaginary and probabilistic processes, is what gives the air of pontifical mystification.
b. As a general explanation, arguments follow from assumptions, and assumptions follow from beliefs, and very rarely- perhaps never- do beliefs reflect an agenda determined entirely by the facts. No less than the doctrines of religious belief, the doctrines of quantum cosmology are what they seem: biased, partial, inconclusive, and largely in the service of passionate but unexamined conviction.
c. Quantum cosmology is a branch of mathematical metaphysics that provides no cause for the emergence of the universe, the how, nor reason thereof, the why. If the mystification induced by its mathematics were removed from the subject, what remains would appear remarkably similar to the various creation myths in which the origin of the universe is attributed to sexual congress between primordial deities.
David Berlinski, "The Devil's Delusion."
So, what is the lesson?
Simply this: take care, when the belief overtakes us, that the human mind can answer all questions.
