Thoughts on Ye Shiwen

Yeah, she won. She broke the world record. For most athletes, this would be more than fabulous, but for this 16-year old Chinese girl, this is not much short of disaster--American swimming coach called this result "disturbing" while more western media insinuate that Ye is not "clean".

Quite frankly, when I first read the news, I found the game result shocking as well. However, I was absolutely furious at people's casting suspicion that she is involved in doping. Innocent until proven guilty, easier said than done.  I could not be sure if innocence holds, but before there is any evidence suggesting otherwise, I am willing and will give the benefit of doubt.

What I found more disturbing is what happened afterwards. The drug test shows no evidence of drug use while the suspicion does not there. There are talks of type II error, or somehow the Chinese developed some new drugs that evade the test (http://news.discovery.com/adventure/ye-shiwen-doping-scandal-olympic-swimming-120801.html).  If one talks like this, then there is no point in employing any test--all results are non-conclusive, and whatever the test results, he can hold onto his original belief, unsupported as it might be. This is confirmation bias at play. People choose to accept evidence only if they confirm their belief; when faced with ambiguous evidence, they interpret it so that it confirms their belief. While disturbing (no punch) and obnoxious in events like this, it is dangerous in many other situations---some economists have argued that it is this fatal conceit that prepared many financial institutions for their death and damage.

The almost uniformly negative attitudes of western media towards Ye reflects a deep-rooted (and dogmatic) distrust and suspicion towards anything Chinese. It might well extend beyond sports. In politics, when things are more ambiguous, and open to more interpretations, I am wary how impartial they would be in their interpretations. As for China, I think the state is overly obsessed with its "international image". Personally, I think it is futile to worry about it and try to bolster it when the observers are (dogmatically) biased. The state's mandate is simply to improve the welfare of its people, and should not compromise this goal simply because of some "international image" concern.