Studies are easiest to perform on topics with easy to measure results.
But in most any field, if you’re genuinely interested in the field, you will be aware of people who you consider to be better than you. Even if it’s a highly subjective field, as you learn your taste/appreciation grows and you get a clearer picture of what you consider “better”. Those are your potential pool of coaches/mentors. You don’t have to pick just one, either.
Sports demonstrates precisely the opposite. Most experts that are very good at a subject are completely incorrect at describing what is actually going on.
There is a reason why we use cameras, computers and scientists for kinematics at the highest levels of sports.
I think this is a confusion between “marginal” and “by and large”.
If I go to a coach to help me with running faster their advice won’t be “completely wrong” — it will be “by and large” correct.
But there are still opportunities for “marginal” improvements that can be found with better measurements. Eg in moneyball they weren’t showing that everything the scouts did was completely wrong. They showed that marginal improvements could give them an economic edge. Even a few percentage points of improvement of received wisdom v measurement meant their
money was much better spent.
> If I go to a coach to help me with running faster their advice won’t be “completely wrong” — it will be “by and large” correct.
Nope. Unless they've been vetted, their advice is rarely better than random. And, even if they've been vetted unless they're biomechanicists, they often have these totally weird misconceptions about some specific thing.
See: baseball pitching. Practically everything about pitching below the major leagues was detrimental to pitchers (and even the major leagues had lots of misconceptions) until the scientists got involved.
What disguises this in sports is that consistency wins out over correctness until you reach the very, very highest levels. The problem is that it is almost impossible to adjust to "correct" after 10+ years of doing it wrong. So, what happens is that those doing it "correct" move on to the next layer while those doing it "incorrect" get left behind.
But in most any field, if you’re genuinely interested in the field, you will be aware of people who you consider to be better than you. Even if it’s a highly subjective field, as you learn your taste/appreciation grows and you get a clearer picture of what you consider “better”. Those are your potential pool of coaches/mentors. You don’t have to pick just one, either.