What is the evidence that training with power is superior to . . .

Originally Posted by kmavm

Dr. Day, I'm tired of arguing directly to the question of whether or not your JujuCranks have the potential to improve athletes' performance. I don't think these arguments are getting anywhere. So instead, let me ask you a few things I've gotten curious about from watching you over the years.

Can you imagine evidence that would convince you that you were wrong? Suppose I did a double blind study with N=2000 trained cyclists, half of which exactly follow whatever JujuCrank protocol you prescribe, the other half of which follow exactly whatever JujuCrank-free protocol you specify, and the study shows nothing at all. Would you then believe that the null hypothesis (i.e., that JujuCranks don't do anything but make you a better JujuCranker) would be a reasonable default? If not, what evidence would convince you of such?

If you don't admit to the possibility of such evidence, then you should admit to yourself that your beliefs (which are not falsifiable) are religious in character, and that your group of followers is, in essence, a cult. I hope you would then get into honest work, since continuing to sell very expensive training aids that don't seem to be effective is essentially conning athletes out of their income. Notice that for those of us who see no reason to expect PowerCranks to work, and no evidence that they do work, this is how you come off.

Finally, even if you like running a cult, let me appeal to your enlightened self interest as a cult leader to convince you to give up your current carpet-bombing approach to Internet PR. I'm going to cynically put aside the question of whether your product works or not; after, all even Scientology tries to keep up appearances in public. Join me on a trip to the land of thought experiments to help understand how skeptical potential customers (such as myself) view your product and company...

Let's say that I am the sole proprietor of a company selling ... I got it: a $2000 set of floppy rubber handlebars. Because they're floppy, they train you to engage your core, and failing to engage your core is, it turns out, exercise science be damned, the key to unlocking awesome performance gains, or whatever. I've got some really great athletes (who may or may not have been really great athletes before they got their FloppyBars) lined up to say they use them, too.

Now, for this imaginary exercise, it's not important whether or not FloppyBars work, or even whether I personally believe that they work. It's just important that you intuitively realize that: 1. I'm making some extraordinary claims that have no prima facie reason to be true; 2. I'm asking people for a lot of money that will be wasted if those extraordinary claims are false; and 3. I've got essentially zero convincing evidence for these claims.

Finally, imagine that about 50% of the Internet posts ever seen anywhere about the product are from me, personally. And that I seem strangely unable to let critics of my product slide; I almost never say anything like, "Well, if they're not for you, that's fine, more trophies for my athletes." Instead, I seem almost constitutionally incapable of posting in a tone other than strident defense. It's not good enough to claim that my training aid is valuable; I have to also question the value of all other training aids, etc.

I claim, if I were in such a position, I'd be mismanaging my business to continue posting to the Internet in such a way. I might sell more floppy handlebars, for better or for worse, just by letting word of mouth and the awesome power of core engagement (or the placebo effect) do its thing. Because, by running the risk of triggering so many people's snake oil detectors, I might be convincing them I'm actually a cynical manipulator. If some of the people I tick off are smart or motivated enough, I might even inspire them to construct elaborate parodies of my product, which might cause even some of the less skeptical potential customers to be turned off. Just saying...