Statistics, Performance Enhancing Drugs, and Major League Baseball–II.

"In science, if a variable is accidentally thrown in, and its effect is unknown, it doesn't matter how small or large the effect really is. The experiment's results are invalidated. " Source? Anyway, the whole argument is that the effect is insignificant. We're talking about baseball. No one who studies baseball statistics is going to pretend that they're perfect. They're still subject to many, many minor fluctuations–that's just the nature of the game. Thus, we accept these statistics, because they are basically as good as they can possibly be. The argument is that any change due to steroids is non-existent or minimal, and therefore the legitimacy of these baseball statistics is maintained. "If a scientist decides to grow some plants under Condition A to observe the effects compared to plants under Condition B, and he realizes that he used tap water for Condition A, but vitamin water for Condition B, what should he do? Invalidate the experiment. If the effect of the vitamin water is unknown, there's no way that he can publish these results. " You keep distorting my argument. First of all, these are not plants. Your example already allows a scientist far more control over the experiment than in baseball. Baseball isn't even an experiment. Baseball is a game first, and a potential scientific study second. Second, the difference in tap water and vitamin water for two experiments is HUGE. As I've been arguing, the effect in baseball statistics due to steroids is not even close to the effect in your hypothetical. "cannot accept steroid-influenced statistics [1]. " Your source says nothing about this. "If you want to run further, you can run further, tiring later. " How much does that help baseball? The only running in baseball is around the bases, which is pretty insignificant, especially compared to hitting and pitching. "If you want to do 1,000 sit-ups, you'll do it with less pain, increasing the chances of doing them all before giving up. " Where's your source saying that steroids help train the abs? Your earlier source gave a blanket statement that steroids help training. What training? As my sources have shown ([6], in the first argument), steroids affect the upper body (meaning the arms, upper abdomen, etc. ) It seems to me that if steroids affect the upper body, but also supposedly improve training, that they would specifically help upper body training, not total body training. "All of them. " You need to provide a source. "So, you concede that there might be a minimal effect. However, even a minimal effect is statistically significant [3]. " Read your source. You're twisting what it says. I quote: "'A statistically significant difference' simply means there is statistical evidence that there is a difference; it does not mean the difference is necessarily large, important, or significant in the common meaning of the word. " I said there may be a minimal effect, even though I've provided many arguments to show otherwise. If there is a minimal effect, that does not make it significant–or, IMPORTANT–enough to change the statistics. That's the argument. "One of your own sources says," It doesn't matter. The source provides two points that we're focusing on. One is that bats and stadiums changed to promote offense. This is factual. This is what I've cited. Elsewhere in the article, it says that steroids were a factor. That's not a factual statement. I cited a source that provided both factual statements and opinionated statements. You can't disregard the factual statements because of opinionated statements. "but there had to have been some factor to slow this down. " Ok. I think you're misunderstanding the graph, but regardless, I've shown you other factors. "That's because the second graph doesn't show how the slope used to be much steeper, but suddenly evened out. " Uh, so? The first graph doesn't show that there wasn't any change in power levels. You can't just disregard one graph because it doesn't show the same thing as another one. "Well, if not everybody is using steroids, then we obviously can't call it an even playing field. " Yes, we can, if the non-using population is miniscule compared to the using population. "Ordinarily, they both would have the exact same statistics. However, the steroid user ended up with a few more home runs every season because of his steroid usage. Obviously, these statistics cannot be compared with each other. " You haven't shown anything to support that the steroid user would end up with more home runs due to his usage. Sorry, but this is the same thing you did in the last debate. You can't just say something is true when it's what we're arguing. "Well, this looks as if you concede that if PEDs do have an effect, then it would lead to an increase in home runs, so an even playing field would not occur in terms of statistics. " Haha, what? I didn't concede anything there. I said that you haven't shown anything to say that PEDs have an effect. You ALSO haven't shown that pitching faster results in more home runs, which is really a ludicrous claim. If you want to hit a baseball farther, you might do so if the pitch is faster, but a faster pitch would also make it harder to catch up with. You're basically saying that a faster pitch would make it easier to hit home runs, which contradicts uh, everything that common sense can tell us about baseball. So, were your argument even legitimate in that its premises, that steroids increase speed, were correct, the conclusion wouldn't even work. "You concede that steroids might have a minimal effect. Statistically, with an outside factor that cannot be accounted for, and might have an effect on the results, the results are no longer legitimate. Because this outside factor has a minimal effect, this effect is not due to chance, because it is correlated with PED usage, so it would be counted as statistically significant. " You haven't shown any source for this. Understand that these are statistics created from what is first a game, not an experiment, and understand that minor faults already exist. Steroids, IF the effects exist, which you haven't shown, DO NOT create enough of a difference to make these statistics illegitimate. This argument of yours also hinges on your misunderstanding of the source above. A statistically significant change is not necessarily an important change. "Again, because it is conceded that there might be a minimal (but still statistically significant) effect on statistics, the statistics cannot be held as legitimate. " Refuted above. You've completely misunderstood your sources and distorted my argument. I'm sorry to say that you seem to be arguing this in the same way you did last time. You don't seem to understand the topic at hand. You keep using semantics or distortion to try and refute what I've said, but you still haven't provided very many real contentions. You haven't really shown that steroids help at all, and you haven't shown that if they help at all, they change the statistics, and you haven't really shown that if they change the statistics, that it's enough to make the statistics unimportant. There aren't going to be any sources here, but I cited [6] in the first argument earlier in this argument, and I've shown that my opponents sources don't show what he thinks they show, and thus his citations should be considered void.