Why do I do this? Why write articles about selection bias? #MADDAD

Warning: Overly self-indulgent content.

After posting an article critiquing the paper McCarthy, Collins, Court (2016) ‘Start hard, finish better: further evidence for the reversal of RAE advantage’ I was called a ‘Mad Dad’ by one of the authors. Boo hoo. The tweet, now deleted because it was extremely disrespectful to an eminent academic, for me is neither here nor there, but it made me think I should explain why I do this? What my motivation is.

I have an August birthday and was a late maturer who struggled socially during adolescence. Cue violins. I went to three different cricket clubs but didn’t stick at any and gave up playing cricket, a game I absolutely love, from the age of 15 until 27. This probably isn’t an unusual story however, especially for later born and/or later maturing individuals. 

Perhaps, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb says, ‘I have skin in the game’. Maybe I have some empathy, even a strong bias, for those that the system often doesn’t treat as well as it should?

As a dad of sporty kids I’ve also seen all of the junior cricket pathway and how many promising players are lost within the system, at various stages, due to being born late, late maturing, gone to the wrong school, or a combination of these or other factors.

I’m retired and lucky to have time to read academic papers, blogs, books, listen to podcasts and to think about these subjects. I also kind of feel a responsibility to do this as maybe no one else is doing this within the cricket community?

So from a MAD DAD, over generaliser, peer review avoider, publisher of pseudoscience & purveyor of bullshit, here’s to the next set of blog articles. Keep on keeping on.