One of the best examples of Goodhart's Law I think is what has happened over the past 20 years in sports like gymnastics and figure skating.
The International Skating Union changed the figure skating scoring system after the 2002 Olympics scandal. The goal was to make the system more transparent and objective. Instead of a couple of 6.0 values, each element in a program would get a score based on difficulty and quality of execution.
The end result is that things that are essentially easily measured (like the number of revolutions in a jump) went up in value, while many feel like the overall quality and artistry of skating has suffered greatly. I'm not going to argue about how the "artistry" has suffered, even though I agree; artistry is subjective, and it is supposed to be a sport, after all. What I think is tragic about the scoring system, though, especially in women's figure skating, is that it is greatly biased towards girls, not women. The top "women" skaters these days are a trio of 16 year olds from Russia who excel at some of the quadruple jumps that were rare even among the men just a decade or so ago.
The issue is that it's nearly impossible for a fully developed woman (i.e. with breasts and hips) to do quadruple jumps - the physics just make it extremely difficult. So, sadly in my opinion, it has turned ladies figure skating into girls figure skating. Gone are the old days where you could follow a skater and see her improve and mature over multiple Olympics - now it's basically become a sport of mastering the difficult jumps and quads as quickly as possible until physical development eventually takes over.
I see more of this in society in general now, where with so much data and analytics there is a rush to "measure" everything. But I think it's important to acknowledge what is lost when "subjective" becomes a dirty word.
I feel that a lot of people have this assumption, unconscious or not, that the world is entirely objective. That everything can be measured, and what isn't measurable doesn't exist. I think this belief (which essentially elevates the scientific method to a religion) is causing a huge amount of grief in the world.
Agreed. We had a doctor who refused to believe that my partner’s symptoms were relieved by a specific procedure - because there were no reports of other people’s symptoms being relieved by this procedure. But by this logic, no such report could ever get recorded!
It is critical that subjective, experiential data is cross referenced with objective data in order to control for errors in both. Both kinds of data are fallible for different reasons.
In my opinion, the erosion of subjectivity from science is probably a driver of the loss of objectivity in politics.
Well, ISTM that science has had a pretty good run in politics, especially relative to the rest of history - but now, particularly in the US, science based governance is well and truly out the door.
Why is this? In my opinion it’s because science has rejected people’s subjective experience for too long, to the point where science has become just “someone else’s opinion”. I can think of three examples From the past decade, off the top of my head.
Gluten make you feel yukky? Nonsense, said Science, only people with celiac disease can be gluten intolerant... oh wait, there are other types of gluten intolerance? Who knew?
Qualms about GM? Nonsense, said Science, what we’re doing is perfectly safe... oh wait, GM crops can unexpectedly spread into non GM paddocks, ruining a bunch of farmers? Who knew?
Prefer organic food? Nonsense says Science, pesticides are safe and harmless... oh wait, all the bees are dying from Neonicotinoids? Who knew?
It’s not that there is anything wrong with the scientific method, but scientists who run around and demean people’s subjective view of the world - right or wrong - have IMO really contributed to the current crisis of faith in science. People’s subjective opinion and experience must necessarily be taken into account, since that’s part of their lived experience and what we are here to explain. You don’t have to believe everything people tell you, but you do have to listen and be tolerant.
It’s like a special application of Goodhart’s law, “if we haven’t already seen it, it doesn’t exist”. As a huge fan of the scientific method, this attitude makes me very sad.
I think the main reason is that science has simply become too hard to be explained in laymans terms in a way that you can still connect all the dots. Even plenty of scientists are now so narrow in their knowledge that within the same domain they won't be able to keep up with their peers if it isn't their exact specialization.
It's logical: in the renaissance a single individual could still hold 'all of science' in their heads, by the early 1900's that had split up into a whole bunch of domains each of which a single individual could still comprehend in their entirety. By the mid 1970s I don't think any single scientist still had complete command of their domain and that has only gotten worse.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, and this is not a sad thing per se, more of a measure of how far we have come and how quickly we've done that. The scientific method is the most amazing invention we've done, it succeeded where everything else has failed at explaining how the world and in fact much of the universe works.
Everything can be measured. We just don’t have the tech yet.
A better phrasing of the problem is: the world is immensely complicated and our individual and collective intelligences have only just begun to scratch the surface of this complexity.
Once an individual understands this, they realize that almost everything in life cannot be measured or predicted, and that subjectivity is still very important and a completely valid way to navigate life.
> Everything can be measured. We just don’t have the tech yet.
Theory of science shows us that this statement is a belief. Whether you believe it or not can be argued about, but it can never be proven or disproven, much like the question whether God exists.
Personally, I believe the opposite - that there are some things that even in theory, even with the best and most advanced technology, can't be measured.
> I see more of this in society in general now, where with so much data and analytics there is a rush to "measure" everything. But I think it's important to acknowledge what is lost when "subjective" becomes a dirty word.
You may measure as long as you accept the limitations associated with the measure. Measures are man-made. Hence, subject to interpretation. You add that as a † next to the measure and accept the implications of using that as a measure. There's no perfect measure. There are only options and implications.
The International Skating Union changed the figure skating scoring system after the 2002 Olympics scandal. The goal was to make the system more transparent and objective. Instead of a couple of 6.0 values, each element in a program would get a score based on difficulty and quality of execution.
The end result is that things that are essentially easily measured (like the number of revolutions in a jump) went up in value, while many feel like the overall quality and artistry of skating has suffered greatly. I'm not going to argue about how the "artistry" has suffered, even though I agree; artistry is subjective, and it is supposed to be a sport, after all. What I think is tragic about the scoring system, though, especially in women's figure skating, is that it is greatly biased towards girls, not women. The top "women" skaters these days are a trio of 16 year olds from Russia who excel at some of the quadruple jumps that were rare even among the men just a decade or so ago.
The issue is that it's nearly impossible for a fully developed woman (i.e. with breasts and hips) to do quadruple jumps - the physics just make it extremely difficult. So, sadly in my opinion, it has turned ladies figure skating into girls figure skating. Gone are the old days where you could follow a skater and see her improve and mature over multiple Olympics - now it's basically become a sport of mastering the difficult jumps and quads as quickly as possible until physical development eventually takes over.
I see more of this in society in general now, where with so much data and analytics there is a rush to "measure" everything. But I think it's important to acknowledge what is lost when "subjective" becomes a dirty word.