Monday, May 4, 2020

Leftovers, Review

Agenda
  1. Finish discussing posthumanism
  2. Finish discussing privacy issue
  3. Intersex and trans athletes poll
  4. Topics since midterm
    • Risky Sports: Football (before spring break)
    • Exploitation: theories, student athletes
    • Fair Play: Drugs and Doping; also equipment issues (started Murray's book)
    • Fair Play: Competitive Categories; including paralympics, gender categories, rules about trans and intersex participation
    • Enhanced Athletes
    • Presentation Topics: MMA, Cheerleading, Violence in Hockey, Sports During Pandemic, Equestrian, Nascar
      • no questions on final, but hopefully these presentations helped you see how you can use the tools we've developed in this course to address a wide variety of questions about sport
  5. Final--clarifications
  6. Office hours this week--Wed 2-4.  Just email me when you're reading to Zoom. I'm also available at other times.  
  7. Zoom poll

Thanks for hanging in there!

Boston Marathon Finish Line Gets Touch-Up Ahead Of Monday's Race ...

Friday, May 1, 2020

Good Sport Ch. 8-9

Housekeeping
  • Final questions are at Canvas
  • Monday--you will be able to ask clarificatory questions
  • Also, we will do some reviewing--e.g. we will review Murray's book
  • May need to discuss the last presentation (depending on what happens today)
  • Will look at the poll results on trans and intersex athletes
  • Will poll you on some further issues about online classes

Ch. 8: Privacy Issues
  • Murray's View: Prohibitionism--doping is bad for sport 
  • Counterargument: even if doping is bad for sport, the invasion of privacy is problematic, and possibly even worse than doping
  • How does testing work? (Murray)
    • during competition
    • in some sports, year-around
      • whereabouts rules--have to say where you'll be one hour per day
      • testing is also outside that time frame
      • "observed voiding"
  • Murray's view: most athletes don't mind
  • How does testing work at SMU?
    • several students explained in their RRs
    • NCAA testing vs. SMU testing; different penalties involved
    • each of those students did mind to some degree
Ch. 9: Transhumanism
  1. Prohibitionism (Murray)--performance enhancing drugs and technologies should be banned when they subvert or undermine the meanings and values that are important in sport: talent, dedication, and courage
  2. Physiological View (Foddy & Savulescu)--drugs and technologies should be allowed but only when they enable a person to move within the healthy, human range
    • EPO OK if it let's people move within the normal range, but shouldn't increase hematocrit beyond 50%
    • Beta-blockers not allowed (because a fearless competitor isn't human!)
  1. Transhumanism/Posthumanism (Andy Miah, discussed by Murray; see video below)--the more spectacular the performance, the better; no problem with achieving better than human performance

Watch up to 38:38 or to the end--if you're listening, not watching, the sound in the background is the Sochi Olympics (2014)



Notes based on the lecture:

Performance Enhancing Drugs that could have a "transhuman" effect
  1. The usual PEDS, such as EPO, when they create a super-high hematocrit, outside the human range
  2. Marijuana
  3. Placebo pill, so athlete believes they have extra ability
Other performance enhancing technologies that could have a "transhuman" effect
  1. Genetic screening--who should be a sprinter and who should be an endurance athlete?
  2. Gene doping
  3. Prosthetic devices
    • Oscar Pistorius's blades -- might make him better-than-human
    • Your mobile phone
    • Google Glass
    • Phone tooth implant
    • "nano sized" devices that help us optimize health
  1. Surgery
    • Laser eye surgery--when it creates better than perfect vision (Tiger Woods)
    • Surgically enhanced hand and foot webbing for swimmers


###

Discussion (probably Monday)--what should we think of the transhuman swimmer?



  • Transhumanists (e.g. Andy Miah): hurray
    • sports have always pushed in a transhuman direction through new technologies 
    • sport-specific shoes, gloves and padding in football, swimsuits, fiberglass poles
    • why shouldn't athletes enhance performance with technology used internally?
  • Physiological View (e.g. Bernard Foddy & Julian Savulescu): not good, because he's moving outside the normal human range; not human, not healthy
  • Prohibitionists (e.g. Murray): two objections
Murray p. 164
  • Who is right?