Errors

I've randomly picked for analysis this blog post among the countless millions on the Internet. It exemplifies the shoddy writing and fallacious reasoning that pervades blogging.

In it, the author argues that baseball's error stat should be abolished. His argument may appeal at a superficial level, but it's loaded with fallacies—so much so that the author should concern himself more with eliminating his errors, not the ones decided at the MLB scoring table.

Consider the piece's third paragraph—where the meat of the argument begins:

There are two facets to the E: defensive and offensive. Defensively, it's widely believed that the E is a poor stat to compare fielders with, as the Wikipedia article points out. To compare fielders meaningfully, we must either use a new stat—like UZR—or resort to gut instinct—as most of us do anyway.

Those three sentences contain no fewer than five distinct, logic errors.

• Appeal to popularity—“it's widely believed” and “as most of us do”.
• Appeal to authority—“as the Wikipedia article points out”.
• Begging the question—”meaningfully”.
• False choice—“must either use a new stat … or resort to gut instinct”.
• Inconsistency—“use a new stat—like UZR”. Ultimate Zone Rating is based, in part, on the error stat. You can't eliminate errors without also eliminating UZR.

The last one—suggesting that the UZR can replace the error—demonstrates that the author hasn't done his homework, and thus, far from furthering the author's point, it warns readers not to continue reading. However, those who do continue reading will be greeted by two more problems a few paragraphs later.

Offensively, the E affects batting average. It's a shame that a batter is penalized for what a fielder does just because the fielder does something irregular. The whole game is irregular.

• Appeal to emotion—“It's a shame”.
• Hasty generalization—“The whole game is irregular.”

And as though the author is purposely presenting a bad case, he concludes his argument with one final logic mistake.

Replace ERA with RA and make pitchers accountable for everything going on on the field. This is already accepted practice with the W–L stat.

• Two wrongs make a right—“already accepted practice”

Unfortunately, this stuff passes for standard fare on the Internet. We ought to take care not to be swayed by such faulty reasoning.

Nix the E

Let's talk baseball. Let's talk about stats. Take the following from the Wikipedia article about the E.

[F]ans and analysts have questioned the usefulness and significance of errors as a metric for fielding skill. Notably, mental misjudgments, such as failure to cover a base or attempting a force out when such a play is not available, are not considered errors.

A more subtle, though more significant objection to the error, as sabermetricians have noted, is more conceptual—in order for a fielder to be charged with an error, he must have done something right by being in the correct place to be able to attempt the play. A poor fielder may “avoid” many errors simply by being unable to reach batted or thrown balls that a better fielder could successfully reach. Thus, it is possible that a poor fielder will have fewer errors than an otherwise better fielder.

The above is not an objection to the E—it's a criticism of it. I object to the E altogether. The E shouldn't be an official stat in baseball. Baseball stats ought to be free of human judgment save the on-the-field calls made by the umpires.

There are two facets to the E: defensive and offensive. Defensively, it's widely believed that the E is a poor stat to compare fielders with, as the Wikipedia article points out. To compare fielders meaningfully, we must either use a new stat—like UZR—or resort to gut instinct—as most of us do anyway.

Offensively, the E affects batting average. It's a shame that a batter is penalized for what a fielder does just because the fielder does something irregular. The whole game is irregular.

If a batter reaches first base safely on a routine ground ball to the shortstop, then that batter is lucky. But if one batter is consistently luckier than another batter, then batting average should reflect that, not try to ignore it. For example, if a batter runs fast and the shortstop knows the batter runs fast, then maybe the shortstop bobbled the ball because he rushed. Credit the batter with a H.

There are better offensive stats than batting average, so let's keep batting average the dumb stat that it is. Limit mucking with the AB and H to objectively measured cases like fielder's choice and the sacrifice fly. Again, only umpires should make official subjective judgments.

Of course, one consequence of eliminating the E is that we must eliminate ERA, too. But if we eliminate the ERA then how do we distinguish between bad pitching and unlucky pitching?

We can't and we don't need to. Eliminating ERA is far from problematic—it's downright good. Far too long the pitcher has been off the hook for what the fielders around him do. Pitchers create their own luck—at least over the long term. A pitcher who incessantly nibbles around the corners of the plate and tries to deftly strike out each batter is probably going to have less alert—and thus sloppier—fielders than a pitcher who challenges each hitter to put the ball in play. Ditto for pitchers who take an extra rub of the rosin bag and dawdle around the rubber between pitches—they should be punished for boring their teammates. Replace ERA with RA and make pitchers accountable for everything going on on the field. This is already accepted practice with the W–L stat.

I don't expect the E to go away in my lifetime. Neither do I expect our country to do the right thing and amend the Constitution to outlaw the designated hitter. I respect and love baseball's adherence to tradition—even when that means keeping the warts. It's worth it. Tradition keeps the Cubs out of the World Series every year. And tradition allows fans to criticize the E.

Who's at the helm

Laura told me she disagrees with my post from last week. She thinks people control their own life much more than my low rating of 2 allows for.

“Uh-oh,” I thought. “What did I write?” I intended last week's post to be about societal control, not individual control. I believe individuals indeed do control a lot about how their lives go—a person's attitudes and decisions have profound consequences. Last week's post muddies that distinction.

On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means our choices have no effect on our personal circumstances and 10 means those circumstances are entirely effected by our choices, I stand at a 7. Maybe lower—it depends how much I discount uncontrollable factors like where we're born and what our parents are like. Nevertheless, my score is higher than a 2 when it comes to individual control. It's societal control that I wrote about and scored as a 2, and it's societal control that I think is mostly illusory.

The world is like a ship with a crew but no captain. Each crewman goes about his work, and that makes the ship appear orderly in some ways. But no one is at the helm, and the ship goes whichever way the current leads. Someday the crewmen may decide whether to step aboard a lifeboat or else drown in arctic waters. Or they may choose whether to ferry to a calm beach in the South Pacific or remain off shore. The crewmen choose, and their choices impact their lives. But the kinds of choices they make—their options—aren't up to them or anyone else on the ship.

Almost. That analogy represents the extreme score of 0—where society is entirely uncontrollable. My score of 2 extends the metaphor by saying that occasionally someone succeeds in getting their hand on the helm, and they steer the boat for a while. But not for long. There's a frenzied struggle of would-be captains all around the helm, and there's no limit to their willingness to mutiny against the current captain to set their own course for a few moments. The result is little different than having no captain at all.

Deal

Saturday I saw a bear. Sunday I saw three snakes, including one that angrily rattled its tail ten feet away from where I stood. Later I drank a liter and a half of scum water because I was desperate enough to drink water with bugs in it.

Laura and I backpacked in the Pine Mountain Wilderness Area last weekend. We intended to do a thirteen-mile loop hike along the Verde Rim, but Sunday morning, seven miles in—that's over halfway—we turned around and backtracked. We turned around because we struggled to stay on the faintly marked trail and because the rattlesnake spooked us and had us imagining every wind-rustled leaf and lizard-nudged rock to be a snake.

I enjoy our backpacking trips into the wilderness. Arizona is a tough place, and spending just one night in it reminds me of the distinction between appreciating nature and romanticizing it. I know a trip is a tough one when I return to the car and am happy to spend a few hours driving back to the smog and noise of the city.

As if to symbolize my urban life, today I mailed my taxes. Today is the deadline, so we all should have mailed them by today. Do you know your tax rate? Not your tax bracket—your rate. Divide how much you pay into your income. I know my rate: for 2010 it's 20%.

That counts everything that's income-related: Social Security and Medicare (the half I pay, not my employer's half), Arizona state, and US federal. US federal—what is actually called “income tax”—accounted for slightly more than half the 20%. Arizona took one-tenth of the 20%.

Twenty percent is not much. Many people argue that I and others pay too much. I'm told that one-fifth of my paycheck is stolen and that it's “my money.” Yet if a thief took one-fifth of my paycheck and built and maintained roads, set aside land for wilderness areas, and provided the other public infrastructures and services I use, then I condone theft. Twenty percent is a good deal.

Controlling one's assumptions

I try to tell people that I don't want to change their mind other than to get them to better understand their own assumptions. The way I look at it, it's not in my interest to surround myself with myself but it is in my interest to decrease the predictability of opposing opinions. And a good way to decrease the predictability of what you say is to know your assumptions and their textbook criticisms. That's how I see it, anyway,

Discovering your own assumptions is not easy. It's like a fish gaining awareness of the water it swims in. That's especially true for the most deeply held of convictions; that which we most believe in we are least likely to be aware of as being a belief and not a universal, immutable truth. Understandably, not everyone is interested in discovering their assumptions. In many cases I think this is because of fear. Boredom and laziness are also culprits.

I'm not free of these faults by any stretch, but to combat them, in today's post, I'm going to lay bare a bit of my world view by asking and answering a question. It's a question that, when answered honestly, exposes a lot about how a person explains (or doesn't explain) the world around them. Without further ado, here it is: How much of our world's circumstances are the result of choice?

Rate yourself on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means that you believe none of our circumstances are the result of choice and 10 means that you believe all our circumstances are because of choice. Where do you stand? I rate myself at about a 2: some aspects of society—even a few significant ones—are a result of choice but mainly we're riding the wave together.

I'm pretty sure my low score puts me at odds with a lot of other people. Foremost, I'm disqualified from believing nearly any conspiracy theory because every conspiracy theory begins with the assumption that the world is controllable. Usually before the conspiracy theorist can begin his explanation, I'm already lost. Similarly, before I can poke holes in their theory, they're lost. We talk past each other.

Other people I'm at fundamental odds with are people who believe we can bring about some Utopian ideal if only we try hard enough and get everyone to believe X or do Y. Such ideas also rest upon the core assumption that the world is controllable, or at least that we can get from here to there by doing something deliberate. I don't see it that way. I observe humans making a mess of things at least as often as they don't, and it's not for a lack of trying to act deliberately.

There are others who I disagree with. But not optimists. Not all of them anyway, though many people who rate on the high end of the control scale may think I'm a pessimist. I'm not, and I don't see what's depressing about a world whose consequences are not entirely up to us. Indeed, I'm inclined to think that it's the opposing view that's depressing. After all, the world undeniably has a history of having problems, and to think that it's both controllable and problematic is to believe that the wrong people have been in control for going on a few thousand years. What a bad track record!

But don't let me change your mind. Go ahead and rate yourself. How much do you believe the world is a result of choice?

Ninety percents

I can't find it anymore, what I once read as a rule of thumb for software development that goes something like the following.

The first 90% of a software project is easy. The second 90% of a software project is hard. The third 90% of a software project is where you finally get a good product.

Instead, what I found during my Google search was the following, called the ninety-ninety rule and attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs.

The first 90 percent of the code accounts for the first 90 percent of the development time. The remaining 10 percent of the code accounts for the other 90 percent of the development time.

Both heuristics describe what is common knowledge to experienced software developers: software development is hard. It's hard in a diminishing returns sorta way, and it's hard because somehow these diminishing returns take us a little by surprise in each project.

These days at work I'm somewhere between the first and third ninety percents and firmly behind schedule. So are the other 100+ developers. It's a grind. First I began getting more done without resorting to working more hours. Then that wasn't enough, and I began working longer hours. That's still not enough, so I'm trying to work fewer hours. That's my best answer to the ninety-ninety rule.

Stepping up

Three months ago I bought a pair of Vibram Five Fingers, and I've put a lot of miles on them—not many running miles but a lot of walking miles. They're great shoes. Invariably, when strangers approach me and ask about them, I tell them so. “If you like being barefoot then you'll like these shoes,” I say. Most strangers, I've gathered, like being barefoot and would appreciate a minimal shoe.

I believe in this shoe. I think it marks an important innovation in shoe technology. Yes, Five Fingers suffer from being a fad. I hope they survive their youthful, volatile trendiness and become accepted as a regular shoe someday—the kinda shoe you wouldn't think twice about wearing as business casual. Otherwise it's a shame that we would knowingly turn away from a shoe technology that could save people a lot of pain and disablement due to foot injuries. Vibram isn't the only one; many shoe companies now get it. The natural, flexible abilities of the foot should not be amputated to make room for the prosthetic that is the modern, conventional shoe.

These past three months have been an awakening of foot awareness for me. Before, I hadn't paid much attention to my feet. They were there for making contact with the ground, little more. My Five Fingers exposed my feet's weakness. After walking around for only a few miles, the muscles and tendons in the bottom of my foot felt sore, just like any other muscle following a workout. And just like other body parts following successive workouts, my feet adapted and strengthened. Conventional shoes break down with time; my Five Fingers and the feet inside them are building up.

A month ago I started taking barefooted walks outdoors during the workday. I figured toughening the muscles of the feet is good but building callouses too is even better. I now easily win the dirtiest-feet-in-the-office competition, and my feet are toughening in two ways. Arizona is a great state for testing tough feet.

As a result of my foot experimentation I think my feet's arches are increasing. I regret not having taken “before” photos when I bought my Five Fingers because I have no way of knowing if my arches really have changed. However, a quick Google search shows some evidence that adult arches can deepen with steady doses of barefoot activity. If so, this is satisfying. Healthy feet are a core part of fitness.

Commonsense platform

Like sharks having sensed blood, big names are circling in on the next presidential election. We've scarcely finished the previous election and are a scant nineteen months away from the next one, so the timing is right.

I advocate citizens ought to uphold their civic responsibility and vote (though my own voting record is dismal) because voting is important. Everyone should vote their hearts and minds. However, I think that voting for President is ineffectual and view the outcome as not likely to have much impact on day-to-day life. But we should all vote, just the same, because voting is important, however paradoxical this is.

I would be enthusiastic about the presidential race if at least one candidate espoused, even just in part, what I call a commonsense platform. A commonsense platform entails using the wide, unconstitutional powers of the modern Presidency to eliminate life's little annoyances. These aren't mere personal grievances but are stances most Americans could agree with. Even if the President also inflated wasteful bureaucracy, started wars, and ate a kitten during their State of the Union address, I'd be happier with their term than with any other President's if only they'd enact one of the follow three agenda items.

1. Nationwide, no-exceptions abolishment of noise-generating car alarms. Public annoyance shouldn't be an acceptable strategy for theft deterrence. Let's return to the days of quieter parking lots, when sirens and alarms meant something and turned heads. People would still be free to innovate new types of car alarms, like one that quietly sends its owner a text message instead of causing a ruckus and hoping a bystander does something.

2. Advertised price is what you pay. Signs, fliers, coupons, menus, and any other publicly listed price should include sales tax and other mandatory fees. If a cell phone plan is advertised as costing $30 per month, then the amount billed should be $30.00 exactly. Include the dozen or so taxes and fees in the advertised price. Also, it would be appreciated if trailing 9's were eliminated. That cell phone plan should cost $30, not $29.99. Let's end price gimmickry.

3. Add the glycemic index to the “Nutrition Facts” label. Many people hate the standard nutrition label and for good reason; there's no end to possible improvements. However, I'm asking for only one: add the glycemic index. Inform eaters how fast a food is absorbed into the bloodstream and how hard the pancreas is made to work. Not all sugars are equal; stop implying otherwise.

That's it. Three things that are non-polarizing, wouldn't cost much to implement, and would make life better for the vast majority. A candidate running on this platform would make me happy to follow my own advice about showing up to vote.