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TIL that it may be faster for humans to run on all fours.
(www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
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So somehow the lesson is not "be careful with curve extrapolation," but "extrapolating curves totally always works and so that's my justification for this xkcd-level of weird nonsensical conclusion, now more funding pls"
The fastest end of the 95% confidence interval has quadrupedal humans doing 108 kmh / 67 mph in 2100, which would have us vying for the title of fastest animal on land. Seems about fucking right team good work
Hey everybody this guy’s over here questioning the curve
Get him
HERESY AGAINST DOCTRINE!
Nah bro, these 7 data points are trending downwards, therefore we can totally project with 95% confidence that humans will be running a sub-6 second 100m on all fours by the year 2100.
Ok I think I’m getting it. So if a human runs on all 8 legs it should be a 3-second 100m right?
The study covers an awful lot more than that. Even the posted excerpt discusses gait analysis and mechanics. Yes it's a projection, but it's hardly unfounded.
I stand by my analysis. Statement #1 is fine, if a little bit wierd. Statement #2 doesn't excuse or ameliorate the total cuckoo pants nonsense of statement #3, though.
If what's the in study is somehow different -- like if the first sentence is "obviously we're not saying that extrapolating these two particular curves forward suggests the exact year when sagittal trunk motion will manage to overcome millions of years of evolutionary re-optimization away from quadrupedal gait, that would be insane" -- then sure. But if that's true, they should have written the abstract different.
Fair enough!