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Do We Need Running Shoes To Run?
prostoalex writes to tell us The Daily Mail has an interesting look at current research in the field of running and injuries related to running. Most of the evidence pointed at a lack of any need for running shoes. Some of the more interesting points: the more expensive the running shoes, the greater the probability of getting an injury; some of the planet's best and most intense runners run barefoot; Stanford running team, having access to the top-notch modern shoes sent in for free by manufacturers, after a few rounds of trial and error still chose to train with no shoes at all."
all that means is that people who walk barefoot should look where they are going a little more than others, ive herd plenty of stories about people standing on a nail and having it go through their sneakers/trainers/whatever and out the other side of their foot, does that mean i should wear iron clad boots?
Or concrete.
Just sayin'.
Evolution also didn't have any use for post-reproductive individuals, so if you wore out your knee joints by the time you were 40 then there's still nothing stopping evolution selecting for you (unless your children were still too young to defend themselves and were killed off by predators).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Running on the balls of your foot means that the shock is being absorbed in your calf muscles. Running on your heels means it's being absorbed in the cartilage of your knees, which can very quickly wear out. Most running shoes I've tried have been weighted such that it's easier to put your foot down on your heel than on the front of your feet, which is likely to cause long-term injury (the cartilage damage is cumulative). They attempt to avoid this by having a lot of padding under the heel, which ends up making the heel heavier and making it even harder to put your weight on the front...
That's not to say running shoes are intrinsically bad. If I were to design some, they would be flexible underneath, to make it easy to run on the balls of your foot. They would probably be weighted slightly forward, so that your toes would be pulled down, and would probably have a thinner sole at the back than the front. In short, they would be almost the opposite of most running shoes I've seen. If anyone wants to make shoes like this, please send me a pair...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Evolution doesn't have a mind at all.
So you had bad shoes, then bought good ones, and then the good ones went bad, and somehow that means that good shoes are better than being barefoot?
Check your data again. It doesn't lead to your conclusion.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Why is this news? For a start, it's hardly "new" that running barefoot decreases injuries and is, as a rule, better for you than running with trainers on. Here's some research from 2001, for example. And getting your science news from the Daily Mail is pretty much the UK equivalent of getting your science news from US weekly. It's not known as the Daily Fail (or The Daily (hate) Mail) for nothing...
Well, evolution can skew towards all sorts of benefits in long life. This can happen quite easily if having grand parents who help look after the family mean that the youngest survive to reproduce.
To say that evolution is all about reproduction is nonsense. It's also about raising offspring to survive better than the environment and other predators can kill them off.
From the summary:
Isn't it possible that the more you run, or the more you get into running, that it is more likely you are going to purchase the more expensive running shoes? So that would seem to correlate mileage and expensive shoes, and it is possible there is a relationship between increased mileage and increase injuries.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
You're also meant to reproduce by the age you're 14 or 16. Aside from legal considerations, today you'll probably get to be on a talk show if you do.
Evolution stopped being important when civilisation set in. Or rather, it changed. It's no longer "natural" selection, we found our own selection criteria and moved on with it. Earlier the female chose her mate by his fitness. Today, she chooses him by the size of his wallet. Evolution 2.0, if you will.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Earlier the female chose her mate by his fitness. Today, she chooses him by the size of his wallet. Evolution 2.0, if you will.
I would argue that she's still choosing her mate by fitness. A "large wallet" is indicative of societal fitness. In civilization, physical fitness has decreased in reproductive importance as it no longer has a significant bearing on our ability to survive and protect the family. The size of the wallet, however, is a very good indication of how well a mate can provide for the family.
/. zen: Imagine a Beowulf cluster of Beowulf clusters...
From the article:
"Then there's the secretive Tarahumara tribe, the best long-distance runners in the world. These are a people who live in basic conditions in Mexico, often in caves without running water, and run with only strips of old tyre or leather thongs strapped to the bottom of their feet. They are virtually barefoot."
Virtually barefoot. Which is to say not barefoot at all. These 'best runners in the world' have decided that they need footwear.
Cheers,
Ian
Or rather, it changed. It's no longer "natural" selection, we found our own selection criteria and moved on with it... Evolution 2.0, if you will.
One really annoying thing about Evo 2.0 is that people that should be having more kids (kind, intelligent, financially responsible) are not but those that should not (lazy, stupid people, with anachronistic religious views) are pumping them out like it's their job to overpopulate the world.
Neat story. And excellent point about tarmac/concrete. Something that always bugged me about people who say running barefoot is good for you because it's natural also "must" take the extra step of running/walking on "natural" surfaces. That means no sidewalks, no paved roads, nothing man-made at all. What did humans walk on 10,000 years ago? Dirt. Gravel. Beach sand. Swamps. Woods. Snow. Open fields. etc... These surfaces "give", unlike solid man-made surfaces. I would imagine that the "perfect" shoe would probably mimic this experience, at least partially. That's probably why all shoes have some sort of cushioning built into them. Shoe's are man-made technology designed to work in conjunction with other man-made technology, roads and artificial surfaces.
SETI is based on a scientific hypothesis: "Given the number of stars and planets in the universe, it is statistically likely that intelligent life has developed on planets other than Earth." SETI itself is merely attempting to gather data in support of this hypothesis. The hypothesis is provable (If aliens land on the planet tomorrow, it would be proven; if we find the functional equivalent of TV signals in our observation of interstellar waves it would be proven; if we land on Alpha Centari in 200 year and find primitive lizard men carrying crystal tipped spears it would be proven; etc), and SETI is one attempt to gather data which might prove it. No one at SETI is making an absolute declaration that "Intelligent life absolutely exists in the universe and even though we've never found any hard evidence, we've proved it." They have a theory, and they are gathering evidence in support of that theory.
In contrast, Intelligent Design advocates are taking a gap in knowledge and declaring it "proof" of some other knowledge. What they're saying is "Because we cannot figure out how 'x' happened, it must be proof that some outside force or being made it happen." First of all, this is an unprovable hypothesis. Even if a being showed up tomorrow and claimed to be God, and demonstrated phenomenal cosmic powers, there is no way to be sure that this being was or was not THE designer, as opposed to something that perhaps has enough power to have done it (I doubt there are any measurement units of Earth that could comprehend whether a being actually has "limitless power" or "apparently limitless power"). Secondly the methodology is flawed. The equivalent with SETI would be a researcher discovering an anomalous unexplained signal, and unilaterally declaring it proof of the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence without first attempting to understand the origin of the signal, whether it has any intelligent pattern or looking at other theories.
Absence of an explanation for a phenomenon does not constitute proof of the explanation you're currently trying to sell. Just because primitive man didn't understand how gravity works, doesn't mean that they would have been correct to assume that there are giant suckerfish under the ground constantly inhaling to keep us all tied to the Earth. A divine being wandering about changing reality at his or her whim might constitute evidence for a supreme creator (though not definitive proof, it could be a different divine being for all we know), but a lack of explanation for certain phenomenon does not.
Having said all of that, I believe that there are beings and forces that exist outside of what we consider "nature". Since I can't defend those beliefs via repeatable experiments or hard evidence I don't present them as "science" or try to teach them in "science class". You can HAVE religious or other superstitious beliefs without insisting that those beliefs be taught as facts. If you want to believe that the world was created, or that there is a supreme intelligence guiding its development, by all means do. Just don't try to present those beliefs as if they were provable facts.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.