For example, someone that has medically-induced higher levels of testosterone might have a resulting advantage in aggressive sports. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s at least worth discussing it openly and honestly
Why is this worth discussing? You want to talk about how Michael Phelps has unusually long arms for his frame, which gave him a huge advantage while swimming? You want to talk about how some Ultramarthon runners have slightly different lactic acid buildup genes so their muscles don’t burn as much? You want to talk about how all the players in the NBA and the WNBA are in the top 99.9 percentile for human height, giving them a huge advantage? Should all of these people be banned from sport because of their genetic advantages?
Many athletes have flat out, built in genetic advantages to other people. There is literally no way to make this “fair” without excluding people that are outside of what will be a 100% arbitrary baseline or forced gene editing, which we are barely able to do and would be wildly unethical.
It’s not worth discussion, because the discussion will be asinine.
Theres a very simple answer to that: The things you are mentioning (height, weight, arm-span, testosterone levels) are not normally distributed in the human population, but follow a binormal distribution. It makes sense to let people from one of the two parts of the distribution compete within their own bell curve. It makes far less sense to set a cutoff at the tail of the curve and disallow people from the tail from competing.
Why is this worth discussing? You want to talk about how Michael Phelps has unusually long arms for his frame, which gave him a huge advantage while swimming? You want to talk about how some Ultramarthon runners have slightly different lactic acid buildup genes so their muscles don’t burn as much? You want to talk about how all the players in the NBA and the WNBA are in the top 99.9 percentile for human height, giving them a huge advantage? Should all of these people be banned from sport because of their genetic advantages?
Many athletes have flat out, built in genetic advantages to other people. There is literally no way to make this “fair” without excluding people that are outside of what will be a 100% arbitrary baseline or forced gene editing, which we are barely able to do and would be wildly unethical.
It’s not worth discussion, because the discussion will be asinine.
The “medically-induced” part renders everything you just said pointless
Theres a very simple answer to that: The things you are mentioning (height, weight, arm-span, testosterone levels) are not normally distributed in the human population, but follow a binormal distribution. It makes sense to let people from one of the two parts of the distribution compete within their own bell curve. It makes far less sense to set a cutoff at the tail of the curve and disallow people from the tail from competing.
Its simple? Okay. Tell me the exact “allowed” physical parameters for any sport.
Since it’s simple, these should be well defined and easy to source.