This is a really, really tortured post with some very strange logic.Expected distributions come from formulas and equations, not "fundamental notions." Discussing expected distributions in terms of "fundamental notions" is just an attempt to try to make this sound scientific without any real substance.In any case, distributions and the equations and formulas which define them don't really tell you a whole lot about the tails. Tails tend to be a bit idiosyncratic, especially when you are talking about one data point at the far end of the distribution. At this point, whatever you think the tail should or shouldn't be, the distribution is what it is. The existence of a single outlier doesn't tell us anything at all about whether EPO works or doesn't work.Anyway, back to the original post...If, as it appears, jemima sumgong took EPO and improved her marathon time, that is a piece of evidence that tends to support the thesis that EPO works to improve marathon performance. The fact that she is slower than Paula is not a counter point to that piece of evidence.
rekrunner wrote:
These ideas come from fundamental notions of the expected distributions of clean performance potential, and expected distribution of additional EPO benefits, in populations with large enough sample sizes, like the global sample of marathon times.
Neither of these factors alone, or combined, should be expected to produce one single three minute outlier from the global population of performances.
The fact that Paula is a significant outlier means that some factor, or combination of factors, outside of "clean potential" plus "EPO benefit", have uniquely contributed to Paula's performances. Unless the prevalence of EPO at the top is very small, or one, doping is not something that can be described as unique to Paula's performances.
If EPO works for everyone, and EPO worked for Paula, there must be other factors more significant than EPO, required to explain the 3 minute gap.
Mr. Obvious wrote:This is some sort of weird loguc for arguing that EPO doesn't work. It makes absolutely no sense.
EPO allows people to improve. It doesn't magically make them run X time and it doesn't makebthem run within Y time of wjat some other person ran.
I do wonder where you come up with such weird ideas.