Friday, August 12, 2005

Everything You Thought You Knew About Steroids Is Wrong

This stunning article touches on many topics surrounding the steroids issue -- sports, anti-aging research, medical science, politics, the War on Drugs, economics -- it's all here. The article is pretty long but worth carving out a few moments out of your day to read.

What's most interesting about this article is only peripherally involved with steroids -- it's about epistemology. However we gain knowledge -- education, indoctrination, media repetition, osmosis, memes, urban legends, back of the school bus, whatever -- we take for granted that, through experience and a careful filtering process, our impressions of the world are generally true. Steroids = teh bad; I never gave it a second thought. I understood they could shrink your nards and cause zits to sprout all over your back -- who needs that kind of aggravation?

But what if that was all hysteria and propaganda? What if these self-evident "truths" were wrong?
For all I know the author could be full of shit but it's still exhiliarating that courageous people are shaking up the Prevailing or Conventional Wisdom. This article seems lucid and its premises plausible so proceed with an open mind and several dunes worth of salt.

Link courtesy of LRC.

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