SHELBYS BACK BABY!!! Houlihan 8:31.56 - dominant 34-second victory!!!!

thinking is very hard, but fingers crossed you get it right next time bozo

My statement about science that you quoted seems correct -- at least you don't really dispute it in your reply.

No, the CAS rulings were not based on science.

Recall the CAS panelists are lawyers and law professors, not scientists, nor statistical mathematicians, nor for that matter, pork experts. The CAS findings you quoted are not science based findings, but what I meant by "subjective intermediate findings ... of non-scientific arguments based on unproven assumptions and incomplete evidence". When faced with competing scientific opinions and conclusions, the CAS did not choose one over the other based on science. They are unqualified to accurately make any such scientific judgements.

The CAS (and the WA/AIU and their "expert witnesses") cannot know what was in a greasy burrito without complete and specific evidence, so any such allegations and findings must be intepreted with the understanding that they do not have a complete picture. Furthermore, the general picture they do have may itself not be accurate, and may be based on invalid assumptions, and their general likelihood conclusions do not fully address the question of the most likely source of the nandrolone.

I did not create the "cool distraction" of comparative likelihoods. Armstronglivs talked about whether "science" "was applied to assessing ... any likelihood she had eaten contaminated pork". The question of "most likely source" must naturally be compared to other likely sources, and not compared to burritos that cannot be the source.

These are more examples of CAS intermediate findings based on incomplete evidence and unproven assumptions (e.g. boar meat (cryptorchid)), originating from the experts of one side of a dispute.

Thanks for the recognition and praise. Considering the quality of some of the posts from the posters I attract, I am well aware I have not learned the lesson of Richard Dawkins, quoting Lord Robert May, when refusing to debate creationists.

Nevertheless, I feel an intellectual duty to point out the evidentiary and logic gaps, and the prominent role of presumptions in a deliberately abbreviated process, in what the "majority" otherwise believe is a solid decision above any such disputes.

This is a gem:

"in 1990s when I was running I saw first hand. It went all the way from high school superstar to World #1 ranked athletes. I used to destroy some of them in early and mid season workouts but a month or so before Championships some of the became untouchable".

So now you hide behind a keyboard and make baseless doping accusations against an entire decade of runners whom you claim to have been better than, but when it came down to U.S. Championship races they destroyed you? Hmmm...kinda sounds like you're a bit delusional and maybe on the spectrum a bit. Maybe if you put your name behind these accusations and perhaps name some of these "world ranked" athletes that you witnessed to dope "first hand" you can add some credibility to your claim.

I'm guessing you're not going to step up and put your money where your mouth is. If you do put on your big boy pants and own your statement, I will apologize to you and put my name to it. Don't be afraid!

I noticed something else very important in your post *separate* from the following items:
1) 1 of 2 witnesses with a proven history of false testimony allowed to be be both lab director and “expert” witness in this case; Apparently, lying or memory loss is not enough to get WADA to act.
2) Testimony based on speculation and admitted lack of experimental data — accepting WADA and AIU speculation as “fact.”
3) WADA knowing about problems and a lack of research, but choosing not to conduct research so they can win the speculation game at hearings.
4) Laying out an alternate testing strategy, arguing against triggering it and then not even adjusting the technical document for 4 years after a CAS arbiter voted that the inappropriate testing strategy was used.
5) Still only allowing an athlete 7-10 days to come up with what caused the positive test weeks or months prior (assuming the athlete is swimming in cash to be able to afford legal reps, PI’s, testing, and get coorperation from all if the vendors/distributors).

Aside from these and other things not mentioned, the acceptance by CAS and AIU/WADA that the pork would have had to come from a cryptorchid goes against common sense and one of WADA’s main educational programs.
The idea from the AIU/WADA witness that the pork would have to be a rare crytorchid is based on the statement that uncastrated pigs do not enter into the general pork market. That statement is not based on testing, but on some fantasy that everyone follows the rules. If everyone followed the rules, there would be no drug or supplement contamination, there wouldn’t be a high percentage of nandrolone and other chemical contamination of meat in parts of Europe and most importantly, WADA wouldn’t be running an educational programs on avoiding contamination.

What I find troubling in this area, is that CAS accepts speculative testimony based on a fantasy that everyone follows the rules at the same time WADA runs a program purportedly to protect athletes from manufacturers, farmers, etc. who don’t follow the rules. The probability numbers in Houlihan’s case were based on speculation, but I’m concerned with future cases where the lawyers at CAS will blindly accept speculation from WADA and AIU witnesses.

WADA is making some minor changes, but IMO more people will lose confidence in their organization if they don’t make significant changes. I think the “doping apologists” are those who are not pushing for major WADA changes and avoid a loss of confidence.

What was new for me was the revelation that accused innocent athletes only have about a week to do their research to meet their burden and provide their initial explanation. She "graciously" got an extension to 10 days, and a promise that supplemental information might be accepted. The lab tests alone took 1 month to get the results. The PI found some meat, but was told it could have come from anywhere -- no way to know if it was from boar or not, without a cross-country search looking for specific and concrete proof of the likely needle in the haystack. Maybe the short time, potentially in combination with inexperience of defending the rare nandrolone case, and limited funds, means that the source of any other relevant organs, chorizo, or even fat, were likely not fully investigated by weeks end. In other words, "such proof (how a substance entered the body) is difficult to provide".

I'd alter a couple of your points:

Even if an expert witness had no previous history of lying, the real conflict of interest in having the Lab Director directly involved in this case as an expert witness for one side of a dispute alone should be prohibitive. The first, and arguably the most important, question before the CAS is whether the Lab did their job correctly. Despite the heightened influential status of this "expert witness" on the CAS, one panelist still doubted whether the Lab did the right thing the right way. I'd like to see the details from that dissent, and how those concerns were addressed and disregarded.

As far as "pharmocokinetic" testing -- I get the CAS argument that these followup tests are optional (and how would you do it a month afterwards anyway), as is getting a second opinion. But the relevant guidance remains that the origin may not be established by GC/C/IRMS, and opting not to do the suggested alternative testing does not undo that prohibitive guidance. The explicit athlete burden at this stage, two steps before the "balance of probabilities" burden kicks in, is "pork consumption invoked by athlete". This may seem generous, but the WADA Lab cannot presume the outcome of the likelihood of an explanation two steps later in the process as a foregone input to reporting the result. Without being able to determine the exogenous origin from the CIR result, the WADA Lab and the WA/AIU cannot meet their own higher burdens. There would be no AAF, no ADRV, and no subsequent athlete burden to find the most likely source (which was used to justify the AAF, and the ADRV, and the burden). This should have been treated as an ATF, with increased target testing.

You also mentioned elsewhere the recent changes in the TD for the criteria of determining "exogenous" origin. In paragraph 60, there is a quote that "Analytical methods or Decision Limits approved by WADA after consultation within the relevant scientific community or which have been the subject of peer review are presumed to be scientifically valid". This raises another question about the removal one of the criteria of less than -27 per mille, without any balancing compensation -- was the removal of that limit, and its obvious impact on the likelihood of false positives from known confounding factors (i.e. pork), equally subject to peer review and scientifically determined to be valid, as presumed? Or is this yet another unproved presumption against Houlihan.

With respect to "only cryptorchids", we don't need to go so far as workers breaking the rules, although during the height of the pandemic supply issues and the presssure buildup from months of backlog and empty shelves, this possibility cannot be overlooked. One glaring omission here seems to be any expert discussion of immuno-castrated boars that would normally go into the food chain when accompanied by a piece of paper with a stamp. What happens when slaughter is delayed 2-3 months, after the temporary vaccine effects start wearing off?

This scenario invalidates several assumptions the CAS took for granted, i.e. only 6-month old cryptorchid with low androgen levels. When you factor in Prof. McGlone's concession of increased soy, the unsupported assumption of only boar meat and stomach, and the admission that Prof. Ayotte's Lab used the TD2019NA, (which arguably they also failed to comply with), seemingly unaware of recent changes made explicit, this seems to me to raise some serious questions that should concern all athletes about the quality of the "expert witness" testimony that it takes to convict an athlete.

This whole "near-zero probability of cascaded presupposed factors" is another sideshow. Even if the assumptions were corrected, and probability numbers were more accurately determined with bounded uncertainty, this would still be a rare event with low probability. But this is not the probability the CAS needs to evaluate or the athlete needs to meet. These different probabilities are not interchangeable.

Tygart's often repeated criticisms are correct. The current WADA defined process, for this subset of cases of potential contamination from USDA approved foods, risks railroading all accused athletes to full 4-year bans, regardless of guilt or innocence, depending significantly on the athlete's ability to fund a competent investigative, legal, and scientific defense in a short time, as well as the mercy and sympathy of the anti-doping organization and/or the arbitration panels.

Your last comment is the only correct one - but not for the reasons you think.

How fast do we think she would have run with competition around her? Would she have won the NB Grand Prix race?

The irony. Dawkins would see you as the equivalent of a religious nutjob.

His method of lying is to pretend such statements were never made or if they were they weren't "science". Only he understands what "science" is.

The “what if” questions don’t have much value. When is she racing again?

You think Dawkins would agree with your "legal" gymnastics that a failed proof for lack of evidence constitutes conclusive proof of just one of the suggested unproven alternatives, based on a series of presumptions?

I didn't and don't pretend such statements were never made. I can eve agree that "boar meat" would produce smaller concentrations of nandrolone, especially when compared to boar offal, according to the "scientific literature". Based on your understanding, which part of the quoted CAS Panel finding is the "science"? Which part is my method of the "lie"?