Yes. But in his world, if you want to argue against his point of view you have to do it with statistics, assuming that you had the time or desire to obtain said statistics or knew where in the hell to get them in the first place. Actually watching football doesn't count. Your eyes, logic and intellect will just deceive you because you are biased and therefore your opinion is worthless. Stats only. All hail statistics.
This guy, a professional statistician, summed it up pretty well in a different thread on this site, directly respondig to Shouright/Gravity:
"I'll never forget an exchange I had with my boss on my first job after finishing grad school. I was asked to do some complex analysis and was so proud when I was able to gather the data and crank it through a canned procedure that belonged to a statistical software package. When I presented my findings to him he pointed out biases in the data that I had failed to take into account, a concept not stressed enough in theoretical graduate school coursework.
My boss said to me: "Who is doing the work, Mr. Xxxxxx? You or the computer? Statistics is one tool at your disposal. Your brain is another. You might wish to use it."
This was an invaluable lesson that I learned as it opened my eyes to the fact that the data you encounter in academic research is nice and clean as opposed to the real world. And in my exuberance to impress my boss with my knowledge of statistics I had lost sight of the project's objective.
While I enjoy participating in debates involving statistics, I also appreciate the sentiments of FinFanInBuffalo and others who understand the danger of relying purely on statistics to the detriment of common sense. To do so is the epitome of laziness.
I am glad that Shouright presents opinions based on statistics as it elevates and diversifies the nature of the forum discussions. As I stated earlier, my personal opinion was that many of these types of analyses are flawed, not due to a lack of understanding of the issue, but because the data required to test these hypotheses correctly is difficult to obtain and time consuming to perform."
http://www.finheaven.com/showthread...-with-NFL-Quarterback-Play-and-Winning/page21
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Pay particular attention to the last paragraph- Shou/Grav KNOWS that what this guy is saying is spot on, that disproving his questionable theories would take a huge amount of time, effort and know how from a professional statistician, not to mention an average poster. So when he comes up with an idiotic thesis such as WRs are interchangeable, his default response when challenged is "prove me wrong"- in stats, of course. Nyah Nyah. He knows what he is doing, knows that what he is asking in terms of countering his argument with stats is a daunting task and knows that he's being an aggravating pain in the rear. And enjoying every minute of it. And he does it again and again and again. That is, at least in part, why he was banned. Notice how when I asked him directly why he was banned he ran for cover, took his proverbial ball with him and ran home. Typical.
In other words, good old Gravity/Shouright has no problem suggesting to others that they devote massive amounts of time and effort to statistically proving him wrong, but when an actual statistician suggests that he do the work himself and actually do it right- he declines every time, just like he did at thephins. Folds like a cheap tent. Worships at the idol of stats, but won't do it the right way when called to the mat. He's a hypocrite who uses his marginal understanding of statistics, incorrectly, to make nonsensical arguments but does't have the sack to back it up when called to the mat by those who actually understand statistics. Apparently it ceases to be fun for him when he can no longer just stick out his tongue at the majority of posters and say prove me wrong, with statistics.