Shooting Arts said, “If a world champion and a scientist are giving me conflicting information as to how to best use the cue I put that ferrule on I'll give far greater weight to the opinions of the world champion.”
Apparently, the Pro player has more credibility than the scientist in your thinking. The unique experiences of the Pro Player (even if over many years) has more credibility than the results of studies of many people under tightly controlled conditions.
It is interesting that you can find problems with the methods of measuring and analyzing by scientists but readily accept the mere words of wisdom of the pro who cannot even approximate his experiences in any numerically reliable fashion.
It would appear that the expert working alone in his preferred style based on his particular physiology, mental abilities, and proclivities to see the world in a particular way is more believable than one who is acutely aware of his limitations and seeks many replications under different conditions with an emphasis on randomizing out individual differences.
Finally, the Pro who is usually limited in his ability to observe, record and analyze his own behavior and who usually has a very limited ability to understand the types of mistakes he is (or could be) making in logic and reasoning is a better source of information.
But then there are scientists who are pro level players. Where are Bob Jewett and Mike Page when they are needed ? We would have to include Dr Dave in that group as a scientist and at the least highly knowledgable player.
But then i guess we all gather knowledge in our own ways and some ways are more profitable than others.
Joe,
Note that I said "how" and not "why" in the text you quoted. The same world champion that can tell me exactly how to do something may be totally wrong about why it works. It doesn't matter. Our application is the same so I can "black box" the why and simply use the how. Despite earlier claims by some, I can use the knowledge of how to make this shot to make similar shots without knowing why the shot works.
When I was very young I thought I had to know exactly how and why things worked to be able to use them to best effect. I wasted a tremendous amount of time and effort learning things I had no real use for and to this day am a font of useless trivia and arcane knowledge about many things. Ultimately though we don't have to know why things work to perform tasks, we have to know what works and how to make it work.
As a mechanical designer working in research and development I was very actively engaged in both sides of the projects. I did a great deal of research so I have read reams of documentation. I also drew up the test procedures and oversaw that they were carried out properly. In addition I often went out to local machine and fabrication shops to oversee their activities for us and I interfaced with shops from coast to coast doing various high-tech operations for us. Applying the nuts and bolts of the scientific method was my job. I know both the strengths and weaknesses of it.
JoeW said:
Most of your comments apply equally well to the Pro player who would be more disinterested (?) more objective (?) and acutely aware of his limitations (?) relative to a person trained in the sciences. What is more the Pro player would be more careful in his statements, would double check his results and ask his colleagues to replicate his findings before going public. The Pro player would probably also conduct pilot studies and seek the advice of his colleagues before proceeding to any definitive study or conclusions.
I assume this is tongue in cheek. The pro player starts with a little base knowledge and skills somebody taught him. He may expand that a bit with books and video or shared knowledge from other pro's. However, pretty much without exception the elite in any physical skill have moved past general knowledge and generally "right" procedures and form and have developed what is right for them. Cookie cutter performers almost never reach the elite level.
JoeW said:
It is not surprising that people (in general) can so easily dismiss the results of science and prefer the "expert" opinion. I suspect this is possibly true because they have a poor understanding of science (as indicated by this thread) and "prefer" to go with what they think they can more easily understand, an authority who tells them what is right or wrong. For many people having to think for one's self is simply too onerous. The Pro says do it this way and so I do with all the problems of logic that lead to wrong conclusions.
People want to achieve goals with minimum effort. That can be called lazy or it can be called efficient. A person could write an entire thick book concerning the things that happen when a cue ball hits an object ball to make a straight in shot. I could see half a shelf full of books being created fairly easily if the grant money held out. A person wanting to understand exactly what takes place could spend a year in very deep study and still have many unanswered or less than fully answered questions. Or a person could simple read to hit the object ball on the vertical centerline to pocket it. The person that only knows to hit the ball on the centerline will pocket at least as many balls as the person that can discuss the collision for hours assuming equal skill.
The scientific community is often guilty of overcomplicating things and introducing errors that need not exist. When we want to pocket balls and move a cue ball around the table anything that does not directly apply to that process is worse than useless, learning it is wasted time and effort that could better be spent elsewhere.
A champion telling us how to do something ultimately has more value and is more efficient than a scientist telling us how we should be able to do it and why it should work. Pool is a results oriented process. We know the champion achieved spectacular results with his methods.
Years ago I was running a project in Dow. We had the primary power supply for a small city sized plant shut down and a two week deadline to complete the project. A highly recommended sheet metal mechanic was assigned to me and I gave him two helpers and told him to put a roof on a duct between a boiler and a stack. Three days later he is still drawing pictures and hadn't cut the first piece of sheet metal much less hung any. Pretty pictures but I fired him and took the two helpers up on the roof, gave them a 2x4 and a saw and left them to work it out. Less than three hours later the roof was finished. I didn't teach the helpers how to design a roof or how to lay out sheet metal, I told them how to fit the roof on that duct. I lost a hundred man hours on wasted effort and used less than six man hours to accomplsh the task only telling the helpers how to do it but not teaching them why. Of course they can cover many a similar structure with sheet metal now including homes and other buildings. They know all they needed to know to accomplish the task.
Hu
