On My "Outcomes" Radar This Morning

So . . . spring has sprung, it seems, the birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and we're all ready to emerge from hibernation.  And like the changing of the seasons, I'm ready to come back around to some topics that initially drove the creation of this blog (less so its evolution, and I'll leave it up to you as to whether it is intelligently designed).  One, the Zamboni issue, sounds like it has to do with the hockey playoffs but actually is a medical issue.  The other, about Dale Crover, comes from a morning interview with the drummer from an relatively obscure grunge band.

First, the Zamboni thing.  I've written about Paolo Zamboni and his work before, and today in the newspaper there is an article about how evidence is mounting that his theory and method does not work.  In my initial post from last year, I argued that his method should be considered for funding, in order to test it and gather evidence.  The Canadian government had denied this funding because the medical establishment decided (prior to the existence of the new evidence) that his ideas had no merit.

It's easy to look at the outcome, that the evidence is piling up against Zamboni, and say that I was wrong and testing should not have been done.  But that presumes we knew then what we know now, which of course we didn't.  The procedure looked promising, and more testing needed to be done.  Though the likelihood of a major breakthrough is always low, if the cost of testing it is also low, there is no harm in doing so.

What is harmful, in my opinionon, is the attitude of a woman who has had two Zamboni procedures done and is willing to have more, despite the fact that they have done little for her (the first offered temporary relief, the second has accomplished nothing; total spent: $15,000).  Ignoring evidence is just as bad as disallowing its exististence.

The second example on this topic is the story of Dale Crover, who was briefly the drummer for Nirvana 1988 (yeah, I know, who in Seattle at the time wasn't).  He was faced with a decision between joining Nirvana permanently or going back to his own band, the Melvins.  He chose the latter, which is why you probably haven't heard of Dale Crover before.  In hindsight, terrible decision; at the time, the only decision that made sense.  The Melvins were big on the local scene and Nirvana didn't even have a record deal.  In the interview he seems to console himself with the fact that the Melvins are still around and Nirvana isn't, but that doesn't change the fact that his life is very different as a result of the decision.

It would be better if he consoled himself by knowing that there were hundreds of other Nirvanas out there that didn't make it big, and that the Melvins had a bigger career than any of them.  To think otherwise is tantamount to quitting your job because you saw that an unemployed guy got rich playing the lottery.