"On a deeper level, what is a "performance-enhancing" drug that a good night's sleep and sound nutrition is not? "

Well we can start with caffeine as it, when use correctly, is indeed a drug which enhances various performance aspects (physical or mental). It is also something not a part of sleep or nutrition and will have an enhancing effect regardless of a good diet or poor sleep.

To me the question isn't whether a substance enhances performance or not. It is the fundamental assumption that some substances, or even methods in the case of blood doping, are somehow "ok" but others are not. Let us take blood doping for example. For those who haven't bothered to look into the details, blood doping is where you (simplification warning!), commonly, extract some of your blood and before an event put it back in. Why would you do this? To increase your red blood cell count.

This provides more oxygen carrying capacity and thus can tremendously boost your aerobic performance. Notice there is no drug used here, and nothing being added to your body that it didn't already produce. Yet this is banned. However, you can get the very same effect by training at high altitudes. We have an olympic training center in the U.S. sited specifically for this reason. So, training at high altitudes to increase RBC is ok, but removal and replacement is not.

On what grounds? That it is somehow "unfair". But which is more unfair, and unfair to whom? The implication is that it is unfair to those who can't afford the procedure. Yet the procedure is far cheaper than going to a high altitude location and training. Much more convenient as well. So perhaps it is the other way around: perhaps the intent behind it is to prevent those of lower financial means from achieving the same level of performance.

The aforementioned caffeine is not regulated but I happen to know of Olympic teams which utilize it. Why is it no banned? Over the next several years as more word leaks out to the mainstream the public will learn how much eating a high fat, moderate protein, and low to moderate carb diet is a performance enhancing one compared to the standard high-carb/low-fat one most athletes not in the know already consume.

And don't even get me started on the stupidity that is anti-steroid. Steroids can't transform you from a little guy to a big guy on their own. It takes punishing workouts in the gym to accomplish that with steroids. All they let you do is if you are at the "natural" limit of your musculature they can get you to push beyond that. Even then you can do the same thing through very strict, and monstrous, nutritional assistance along with living very, very heavy. When it comes to competitiveness, steroids can only be used for recovery or taking an already extreme athlete just a bit further.

I've known guys who, despite not being in competition, tried using steroids to enhance their physique. They gave up because it still required far more effort than they were willing to put in. This notion that you can "just take some 'roids" and become the Hulk is untenable from a biophysical science standpoint. We're talking taking them and STILL spending pretty much all day in the gym - not a few hours but all day - and consuming incredible amounts of protein and calories. It is much like the misguided advice to women to not "lift heavy" to avoid becoming a she-hulk. That, too, takes an insane amount of dedicated effort. Nobody just accidentally lifts heavy and falls into this kinds of bodies.

I don't recall the formula off the top of my head but we have a scientifically determined formula which given certain physical measures of a person we know what the upper bounds of the musculature development for any given person is without the extremes I just mentioned. If so desired one can use that to create two classifications for such competitions. "Problem" solved.

I say pull the governor off the engine and let us see how far we can push the human body.

But is competition between athletes or their trainers or their equipment? And the deeper question is whether and to what extent the rules do (or must?) change. We ban certain drugs now. As yet there is no ban on genetic modification - or on having good genes and a good childhood.

The deeper question is what do you do when the rules you did not agree to are put in place?

Decades ago I saw an unforgettable TV commercial one whole time.
My guess is that it was almost immediately removed due to complaints.
It starts with a bunch of kids pedaling along on bicycles who sing~
"Here we go to school today,
to school today,
to school today!
Here we go to school today with medicines from Bayer!"
Then you get a video camera shot of all sorts of pushed together diversely shaped pills being floated over while a narrator carries on about all the wonderful medication products that Bayer has to offer.
I never have been ever to find that on Youtube.
I didn't try to do that again today.
Got things to do. Bye!

I think you nailed the same argument I was making. There is a wall that is usually hit for human development... some of these people are very obviously beyond that.

I've read some of the other comments below, such as Barry Bonds - I'd suggest looking at a photo of Barry early in his career, compared to later. He practically went from being a 130 lb weakling to a gorilla (exaggerated, but not that much actually).

http://www.topps.com/circa-1989-barry...

http://www.mymccrearyhomesucks.com/ne...

I say that as someone that for a 4 year period, was very focused on being in the best shape I can be, and quite honestly, you do hit a wall. I'm a big guy, I'm around 6' and 250 lbs. I had slimmed to around 230 (slim for me actually) and was regularly lifting 400+ with my legs and could basically lift at least my weight with any of the major muscle groups, and we Norwegians are a fairly stout genetic stock. I'm not a bodybuilder, I was just very focused on it for about 2 hours every day.

When you hit that mark, no matter what I ate, how much sleep I got, how much effort I was putting in, I couldn't go any 'larger' than I was, or stronger necessarily. I continued to improve my cardio & such, but I came to that realization that there really are limits to development. Then looking at some of the other guys in the gym, it was very obvious they were not doing that on their own.

At the professional level, competition is extremely fierce. You might have a foot or so separate NASCAR finishers for the cup at the Daytona 500 (after 500 miles), 1/100ths of a second separate swimmers at the Olympic level, and you might see less than 1 kg difference in power lifting. You can see a bike tire thickness of separation here at the Amgen Tour of California every year. Carrying an extra gallon of water in the radiator of that NASCAR finisher beyond the bare minimum needed adds 8 lbs to the car and over 500 miles you just lost that 8 inches you won by. Something as seemingly insignificant as a blood transfusion at the low points of a multi-day / multi-stage race like the Amgen or the Tour de France gave Lance Armstrong the ability to consistently win. Why? Everyone else was having more difficulty metabolizing the oxygen to nourish their muscles and fatigue inevitably results.

On the issue, I'm torn. I know from first hand that to fully develop into the best you can be, you may need PEDs.

I think if I had my preference, the athletes should be able to train with them during the offseason to grow faster/stronger, recover from injuries more quickly, and to 'protect' themselves by being stronger. HOWEVER, there shouldn't be any trace of the chemicals at competition.

Steroids are the most effective treatment to rebuild muscles for example, many of these people deal with torn ACL's, knee injuries, etc. Most doctors are going to prescribe a steroid as part of the therapy. Likewise, steroids are also commonly used as part of the treatment for respiratory infections. These are things that have a legitimate medically-prescribed purpose for anyone, not only athletes.

Of course, I also see the other side, they can certainly be abused, and being 550 lbs is not 'normal' for a human.

At the same time, this is what people pay to see. I think the desire of professional sports though is to not look like the World Wrestling Foundation, and maintain some kind of legitimacy of competition.

rational "self-interest" vs "law" is an interesting juxtaposition...is there a conflict if objectively arrived at...

i was on national debate in high school and majored in philosophy/psychology in college and listened and talked with Ayn Rand, Nat Bradent, Dave Kelley, etc...
one cannot blindly follow a country"s laws (Nazi Germany or the current Patriot Act)..
athletically, i have completed over 77 marathons and numerous tris...without any enchancers...just determination...what they are finding out now is that such performance is resulting in heart electrical problems as my generation ages...i cannot reverse what i have done...i live with it as best i can...i ran 13 Boston marathons...one would have been enough had i known...but it is always my choice, not the govt...

I think it does. A competition is between sportsmen, not pharmaceutical companies. Sport is essentially a game and every game has rules.

NO! Did they give Barry Bonds better eye sight and hand eye coordination to hit the home runs, NO.
When you look at the size of football players today without any drugs they are massive men.
If you do not have the talent to begin with the drugs will not give it to you.

Seth Curry started shooting long jump shots as a kid and as such became proficient at making them. That is what is know as practice makes perfect. The same held true for Bill Russel, Bob Cousy, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Mike Jordan, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and oh so many more. These players worked very hard to develop the skills to be as good as they were or are for those still playing. No amount of drugs would have done anything for them.

I think that performance enhancing drugs should be banned by sport organization for Safety reason. Performance enhancing drugs would add another dimension to the game that could cause short term and Long term health issues. Also, Juicing the competitors could cause other safety issues for the sport other the safety concerns for drug by itself.

There is a huge difference to me, however, between internal training - pushing the body to its own internal limits/exploring what one is capable of - and using shortcuts to move the cross-bars artificially - especially contrary to the rules you agreed to. Again, if you want to change the rules, change the rules. You're not going to get me to buy into selective interpretation of them, however. It's a progressive notion that seeks to ignore reality and justify the ends while ignoring the means.

"But we already have such selection by privileged birth."

Really? How so? I'm not aware of any human beings born with the features you cited. I'm not being facetious, I'm just noting that you are presenting a case as if it already is while it is nothing more than science fiction.

In my childhood, professional baseball players were not as big as they are today. The training table and the weight room have raised the size of baseball players. The teams select for size in the first place and then bulk them up. Did the first team that started that break the rules? Is baseball a competition between training regimens?

I do not have an answer. If we allow laissez faire with performance enhancers, soon that will include genetic remodifications, and bionic implants such as super muscles or two-stage lungs with superchargers or 6-chambered hearts.

But we already have such selection by privileged birth. Long ago, I read a story from a city girl who was accepted to an exclusive prep school. The first day on the field, she thought to herself, "I am going to run these puppies into the ground." Then, she found out that she could not. Her social disadvantage was deeper than she knew.

But is she the standard? Were the kids with healthy parents and healthy childhoods unfairly competing?

Again, I don't know... I tend to laissez faire, but as above, that can radically change the nature of competitive sports in dimensions not originally expected. But competitive sports are only a microcosm of competition in general.

Is it unfair for insurance sales people to drink Red Bull?

If you make the agreement yourself, you are bound as much by your own honor and internal consistency as anything else. In the case of baseball, the agreement is such that those who artificially enhance their performance in the game violate their integrity and their love of the game in favor of money and they do so at the expense of others playing the same game and under the same rules. One can complain about the rule and abolish the rule, but once the rule is made and you are party to it, your perceived self-interest then becomes an excuse - not a justification - for rebellion.

Another way of thinking about the matter is this: does the end justify the means? The rules are there as means to an end. If you disagree with them, you are effectively arguing that you disagree with the ends as well, do you not? If one argues that there should be no bans on performance enhancing drugs in athletics, is not one actually arguing that the contest is not actually between athletes, but between pharmaceutical manufacturers?

The other question, though, is under what circumstances are you bound by agreements with other people. Let the rules be whatever they are - against gambling in baseball, for instance - and how are you (ever) ethically constrained to them against your own perceived self-interest?

As I noted below:
"Ayn Rand attempted to get around the problem of rampant subjectivism with "man qua man" as the standard. In other words a virtuous person acts with reason and rationality to achieve purpose and productiveness with self-esteem and pride as the consequential rewards."
https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

Yes, I found that story and I remembered watching it. As for "genetic competition" Heinlein (again) was more insightful. Remember that in ST, they flipped the gravity switch to ON so that everyone is not floating about and then being slammed about as the ship changed direction. And the recent NASA mission with Scott Kelly and his twin will undoubtedly indicate that zero-g will make us into something else entirely. Space-faring human beings will be more like jelly fish and less like apes.

Statistical Probabilities was the one with the augments who wanted to help with the war effort. The characters got into the nittty gritty of the ethical issues of whether letting them achieve even in times of dire need might encourage genetic competition. To me it illustrated the folly of being afraid of competition without making those afraid of competition look like stupid villains.

I think that the real question is whether or not we are our genes or whether our genes are only a representation. I think the movie Gattaca raised this question very successfully and gave a glimpse into how life would be if our genetic makeup determined our futures. Are some people born and destined for greatness or are we self-driven and self-made people? Do we allow external factors (such as a heart condition in Gattaca) to determine our lives and futures or do we have the ability to rise above these limitations to something greater? Would the world of Gattaca produce a Beethoven or a Stephen Hawking? Do our challenges act as limitations or as stepping stones to greatness?

Star Trek always has had an anti-genetic engineering philosophy. (Khan!) I personally see nothing wrong with genetic engineering.

I'm not so sure about performance enhancing drugs -- at least those which are demonstrated to be harmful. The reality is that with the high degree of competitiveness in modern sports, anything that gives an athlete an actual edge pretty much becomes mandatory to be in the game.

Although it may be in the best interest of an individual athlete -- at least according to his own judgement -- to take a substance like steroids, it is not in his interest for everyone to have to take them just to be on a level playing field.

No. I'd leave.

I was thinking of Dr. Bashir, I Presume? in which it revealed that he is an augment, having had his DNA resequenced as a child, to change him from a low-performing normal into his very accomplished present self.

The broader theme is common in science fiction. SLAN by A. E. Van Vogt is probably the paradigm. I do not know of an earlier story, but they must exist. Collectibles capitalist, Jim Halperin of Heritage Auctions, wrote two novels on this theme, The Truth Machine and The First Immortal.

It is a fundamental question in egoism: when are you bound by any rules not your own -- or even your own? If your own happiness is the goal, why let anything stop you?

Ayn Rand attempted to get around the problem of rampant subjectivism with "man qua man" as the standard. In other words a virtuous person acts with reason and rationality to achieve purpose and productiveness with self-esteem and pride as the consequential rewards.

If achieving a difficult task is good, then the reductio ad absurdum is Harrison Bergeron: instead of using performance enhancers, we would all be burdened with preventions.

The DS9 episode Statistical Probabilities discussed this. Your comment reminds me of the characters' discussion of limint genetic enhancements of children. Eventually this will be an issue. I think it's inevitable that we'll enhance human genetics, and it will be more accepted than it is in the Star Trek franchise.