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Comment by aflag | Hacker News Reader

Academia is different from sports. Despite what many people may think, academia and science are not a game. Your goal is not to be better than someone, but to do good research. If you feel the need to take drugs and you're willing to take its risks, then by all means do. It's not cheating.

Now, requiring people to use substances that might be bad for them is not a good idea. People have to have the freedom to choose if they will take those substances or not. Neither should be mandatory. The reason for this is that we want people to be able to make their own decisions and do whatever pleases them the most; may it be using drugs or not.

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Good point. Academia is not a zero-sum game.

Knowledge is not a zero-sum game. Academia, not so much.

Very true. That's a lot more accurate.

It is if there are limited spots for an academic position, papers a journal can publish, etc.

Academia is extremely competitive at the professional level,as are many pursuits. That's why many many researchers cheat, and it's so scandalous when they are caught.

Think about this: you lose out on a job opportunity to someone who forged their data or perhaps used stimulants to work at an unnatural pace over a certain period of time. This changes your career in a dramatic way. When that person is caught, what is your compensation? Yes, he (she) was exposed but you were wronged. What would be fair compensation?

I disagree with this distinction that it's cheating with sports but not academia.

I think what matters is whether there's a health cost to these drugs and if so how much. If a drug is quite safe, then it should be allowed -- no matter whether we are talking about sports or academia.

Sports are for the entertainment for those watching. The consensus seems to be that the spectators enjoy it more when they know the athletes didn't use any performance enhancing drugs.

Academic research is not done for entertainment, it directly benefits society and mankind in general. If someone wants to risk their health to find a cure for cancer faster, more power to them.

Spectators like to see new world records.

I would be happy and interested to watch a sporting competition in which enhanced humans could compete.

Yes, this would change the focus to "who has the best toys" - but how is this any different from "who was born with the best genes"? To my mind, the element of randomness makes heredity less fair. A striver might be able to get sponsorship for a course of enhancements, but he can't change his birth.

Nascar racing is a sport in which enhanced humans compete at superhuman speeds. They wear specially developed exoskeletons on the field knows as cars. Its great fun to watch, and a complex set of rules has developed over the years as to which enhancements are allowed and how much.

I would be happy if you could find a sporting competition where humans are not enhanced currently.

There are many known tricks such as blood doping that are almost impossible to prevent, and once a few people start doing it everyone must to remain competitive. A huge number of potential athletes take steroids in high school, before testing begins.

I personally think that we should take care to ban these drugs and practices to people who are still developing mentally and physically, but adults should be allowed to make their own decisions. If Stallone wants to eat barrels of HGH to get huge for Rambo, he should be (legally) allowed.

Since no drug is safe enough for some groups, what really matters is by whom it is allowed. Major league baseball, colleges, and other groups with which people can voluntarily associate seem like reasonable arbiters for their membership's drug use. Governments do not.

While I don't agree with you, I see where you're coming from and don't think you deserve negative karma for your post.

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment:

One could perhaps make the analogy to caffeine (as others in this thread already have). Sports and academia alike drink it all the time. This is a drug so generally harmless that we don't even consider it a drug. Who would argue that caffeine gives an unfair advantage? Does it not make sense that a drug with a more pronounced benefit and similarly innocuous side-effects should be accepted?

"Despite what many people may think, academia and science are not a game. "

Wait; all that over/under stuff on the Fields Medal betting is a scam?

Damn.

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