tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/momentum-37212/articlesMomentum – The Conversation2020-01-15T16:59:15Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1300002020-01-15T16:59:15Z2020-01-15T16:59:15ZLabour leadership race: survey shows Rebecca Long-Bailey only just scrapes majority among Momentum members<p>Left-wing campaign group <a href="https://peoplesmomentum.com/about/">Momentum</a> attracted a mixture of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leadership-momentum-member-ballot-deputy-candidates-a9283826.html">anger and ridicule</a> when it announced that it would not ballot its membership on which candidate it should endorse in the Labour leadership contest. Instead, the group simply asked members to vote on whether to accept or reject an official resolution to support Rebecca Long-Bailey.</p>
<p><a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/01/02/keir-starmer-comfortably-leads-labour-leader-race">Our survey of Labour Party members</a> – commissioned from YouGov by the <a href="https://esrcpartymembersproject.org/">Party Members Project</a> run out of Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University – suggests critics of the decision may have a point.</p>
<p>By no means all those Labour members who told us they also belonged to Momentum are fans of the woman who some have labelled the “continuity Corbyn” candidate. Indeed, only the barest majority of them named her as their first choice when we presented them with a list of possible runners and riders.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310431/original/file-20200116-181629-1lwxwfl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the candidates compare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESRC Party Members Project.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>True, Long-Bailey looks to be the overall winner among Momentum members, three and a half times as much support as Keir Starmer, with the other candidates even further behind. But the fact that, in our survey, Long-Bailey was the first choice of only just over half of Momentum members suggests that those members deserved to be asked a genuine question, not just to confirm (or otherwise) the choice made by the organisation’s National Coordinating Group.</p>
<h2>The ideal candidate</h2>
<p>But that’s not all our survey reveals when it comes to how Labour members feel about the leadership contest. We also wanted to know which qualities in a leader party members valued most highly.</p>
<p>The results we publish here refer only to what proportion of members ranked that particular quality as number one on the list. But they do suggest that while voter appeal is seen by many Labour members as important (more so, maybe, than they are often given credit for), being seen to have strong political convictions also matters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310304/original/file-20200115-134789-10xjz9o.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Must have conviction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESRC Party Members Project</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps that’s not surprising since, almost by definition and as <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Footsoldiers-Political-Party-Membership-Century/dp/1138302465">our recently published book</a> shows, most party members are pretty ideological creatures. Labour’s rank-and-file are, by and large, very left wing and very socially liberal. But this also means that there is relatively little room for variation between the supporters of the various candidates. Yes, Long-Bailey’s backers are a little more left-wing and socially liberal than her opponents’ supporters, but the differences are tiny.</p>
<p>What’s more interesting, therefore, are the differences in the leadership qualities that are most highly valued by the supporters of each candidate and then which candidate is favoured according to which quality members thought most important.</p>
<p>For Starmer’s supporters, his biggest draw would seem to be his ability to appeal to and to be in touch with voters; being seen as a strong leader and being able to unite both party and country also count. For Long-Bailey’s supporters, however, her appeal would seem to be overwhelmingly down to the perceived strength of her political convictions.</p>
<p>For Phillips’s fans, her appeal to ordinary voters and strong leadership matter most. For Nandy’s supporters, it is about her perceived appeal to and being in touch with voters. Her potential to offer strong leadership also matters. For Thornberry’s, it is more of a mix of factors: strong convictions, being in touch, strong leadership, intelligence and electoral appeal all come into play.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310305/original/file-20200115-134764-1hf2965.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310305/original/file-20200115-134764-1hf2965.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310305/original/file-20200115-134764-1hf2965.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310305/original/file-20200115-134764-1hf2965.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310305/original/file-20200115-134764-1hf2965.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310305/original/file-20200115-134764-1hf2965.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310305/original/file-20200115-134764-1hf2965.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Strong and appealing to the average voter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ESRC Party Members Project</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If, however, we break things down the other way around and look instead at which candidate comes first among those members who rank a particular leadership quality highest, we see a clearer picture emerge.</p>
<p>Starmer comes first in all categories except likeability, being in touch and strength of convictions, where Long-Bailey wins. Once again, her key asset would seem to be the fact that she is seen to believe in something.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/310306/original/file-20200115-134797-1b0q0km.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Overall traits.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Judging by the campaign so far, Starmer’s team is <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2020/01/keir-starmer-moves-dispel-left-criticism-leadership-launch-video">doing its very best to stress to Labour members that he also believes in something</a>. This is a wise move. Historically, when picking leaders, parties have taken candidates’ convictions into account but have <a href="https://www.psa.ac.uk/psa/news/labours-previous-leadership-election">tended to put more of premium on their perceived ability to unite the party and then on their supposed appeal to voters</a>. Nowadays, when members rather than MPs matter most to the decision a party makes, convictions can really count.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated after an earlier version incorrectly reported Rebecca Long-Bailey’s support among Momentum members as 26.6% rather than 51.7%</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130000/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bale receives funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Webb receives funding from the ESRC.</span></em></p>She’s meant to be the clear favourite for Corbyn supporters, but Long-Bailey hasn’t won over everyone in Momentum.Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonPaul Webb, Professor of Politics, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1108812019-02-10T19:16:25Z2019-02-10T19:16:25ZThe science of parkour, the sport that seems reckless but takes poise and skill<p>People climbing up walls and jumping off buildings in films such as Brick Mansions, Assassin’s Creed, and Casino Royal aren’t tricks of cinema. </p>
<p>The athletes that perform these stunts are part of a global community that practise parkour – a gymnastics-like activity that developed from military obstacle courses. The objective of parkour is to move rapidly and effectively through a complex physical environment. </p>
<p>Our research shows that science can help you practise better parkour – through running up walls more efficiently, and expanding your landing options.</p>
<p>Even if you don’t plan to take up the sport, it’s an incredible thing to watch. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H6AO-RhaG_4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This is parkour.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Traceurs and traceuses</h2>
<p>Although parkour has been recognised as an official sport in some countries, it’s impossible to determine how many people are involved worldwide. It’s an activity that is generally unorganised, which may be part of its sub-culture appeal. </p>
<p>To a casual observer, parkour athletes may appear reckless – but most train very hard, practising a broad set of individual skills that they use as they run through the environment. Men and women in the sport are referred to as “traceurs” and “traceuses” respectively. </p>
<p>Some of the individual movements in parkour parallel those of other sports, such as gymnastics, athletics, and trail running. </p>
<p>But much less research has been done on parkour than on more mainstream sports. This is unfortunate because they shared fundamental principles of generating and redirecting momentum. A better understanding of these can benefit all of these activities. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nM9sOfFKnFA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A woman who does parkour is called a traceuse.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Running up walls</h2>
<p>One impressive feat that catches the eye of many parkour observers is the way traceurs run up high walls to get onto buildings. </p>
<p>To climb high structures, parkour athletes run toward the wall and then kick off it with one (or more) contacts. This technique allows them to reach much higher than using a standing vertical jump, and also allows them to keep moving efficiently through the urban environment. </p>
<p>To <a href="http://jeb.biologists.org/content/222/1/jeb190983">investigate how athletes accomplish this wall run efficiently</a> we embedded a force plate in the ground and a second force plate in the wall. We then filmed study participants as they approached the wall. </p>
<p>We watched how the athletes redirected their body by using a consistent transition strategy that depended on specific actions of the legs on the floor and wall. </p>
<p>Although some parkour guides recommend athletes straddle the floor and wall simultaneously, we did not observe this – the traceurs always left the floor before they contacted the wall. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257188/original/file-20190205-86205-a95bzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257188/original/file-20190205-86205-a95bzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257188/original/file-20190205-86205-a95bzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257188/original/file-20190205-86205-a95bzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257188/original/file-20190205-86205-a95bzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257188/original/file-20190205-86205-a95bzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257188/original/file-20190205-86205-a95bzp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Testing the launching capability of a traceur performing parkour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Croft</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Redirecting momentum</h2>
<p>We wanted to better understand the most efficient foot placement on the ground and the wall, and the effect of different approach speeds. So we built a computer simulation that could optimise each. </p>
<p>The model corresponded well with what we observed – an intermediate run-up speed is best – and allowed us to understand why.</p>
<p>During the run up you create horizontal momentum (the product of speed and body weight). Some of this horizontal momentum can be redirected into vertical momentum at take-off by keeping the leg on the ground rigid – a bit like a pole vault with a rigid pole. </p>
<p>If the approach run is slow there is less horizontal momentum to transfer to vertical momentum. Then the take-off leg has to create vertical momentum by using the leg muscles – which is less efficient. </p>
<p>With a very fast run-up, the take-off leg must act as a shock absorber, which wastes energy and wipes out the benefits of a faster approach. </p>
<p>So, traceurs naturally select an intermediate run-up speed, allowing them to use the least amount of energy to scale the wall. </p>
<p>To scale higher walls a faster approach may be required, but this also requires an ability to generate sufficient leg force. Greater speed does provide greater momentum but it also reduces the time available for the leg to generate the impulse (the product of force and time) necessary to scale the wall.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257159/original/file-20190205-86213-101hs75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257159/original/file-20190205-86213-101hs75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257159/original/file-20190205-86213-101hs75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257159/original/file-20190205-86213-101hs75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=160&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257159/original/file-20190205-86213-101hs75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257159/original/file-20190205-86213-101hs75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257159/original/file-20190205-86213-101hs75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=201&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parkour involves strategic transfer of force and momentum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/29254114@N07/5567362286/in/photolist-9tYbQW-fgfBmk-e3FKes-e3FGN7-fgfGun-fgfMur-fgfDb6-e3Av1t-e5UXX6-f6G3E-fgfMHg-e3FRaE-98Jxz5-fgfLcg-e5UX9K-fguTv9-e3Gfxh-e3Auo2-fguZfJ-fguQny-e3FQnu-fguYjJ-9rVRJH-e3GcXo-98Jw3j-e3AmPF-e61pD7-6XPyJf-e3FYaY-e3GeB9-fguE6d-fguFhu-atW5J6-e3AciX-e3FLJW-fgfDFT-e3A4bD-e3ApSH-e3Aqu4-5hjMSJ-e3Agde-fguUgj-fguNgb-e3A9qe-e3FXgb-e5UVoc-e3AoW8-e3A3wi-atYJBw-7QHMq">objetivarte/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Returning to ground</h2>
<p>What goes up must come down! </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01571/full">research on jumping off walls</a> shows that the type of landing that traceurs choose is influenced by their height, body mass, and leg power. </p>
<p>Landing safely involves managing a number of different forces. Imagine you step or jump off an object – your body accelerates due to gravity. Upon landing, your body has a certain momentum that is determined by your weight and your speed. And the higher the object you jump off, the faster your landing speed and vertical momentum prior to landing.</p>
<p>The main task in landing is to dissipate your momentum in a way in which the load and speed (making up the accumulated energy level) do not exceed biological limits (leading to a muscle tear or tendon rupture). </p>
<p>The impact of momentum on the landing can be reduced by increasing the time over which landing forces apply. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257178/original/file-20190205-86205-7bhgpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257178/original/file-20190205-86205-7bhgpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257178/original/file-20190205-86205-7bhgpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257178/original/file-20190205-86205-7bhgpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257178/original/file-20190205-86205-7bhgpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257178/original/file-20190205-86205-7bhgpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257178/original/file-20190205-86205-7bhgpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Landing right is the key to injury prevention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/danielpetty/8562002367/in/photolist-e3Av1t-e5UXX6-f6G3E-fgfMHg-e3FRaE-98Jxz5-fgfLcg-e5UX9K-fguTv9-e3Gfxh-e3Auo2-fguZfJ-fguQny-e3FQnu-fguYjJ-9rVRJH-e3GcXo-98Jw3j-e3AmPF-e61pD7-6XPyJf-e3FYaY-e3GeB9-fguE6d-fguFhu-atW5J6-e3AciX-e3FLJW-fgfDFT-e3A4bD-e3ApSH-e3Aqu4-5hjMSJ-e3Agde-fguUgj-fguNgb-e3A9qe-e3FXgb-e5UVoc-e3AoW8-e3A3wi-fgfKG4-atYJBw-fguYGJ-fgfACP-fguLb1-e3G11s-fgfLsk-bsZ5iL-5rATgW">Daniel Petty/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, allowing the supporting joints to flex (that is, bend) over a greater range can gradually decrease momentum.</p>
<p>Alternatively, it is possible to redirect the force by converting momentum into rotational momentum with a roll. This means that force becomes oriented in a direction that does least harm. </p>
<p>The strategies that are available to an individual vary based on their body characteristics (such as height, weight, bone, joint and muscle strength, flexibility, and coordination). If the chosen strategy is insufficient to manage the momentum, injury to muscles or bones will result. </p>
<h2>Roll into it</h2>
<p>Unsurprisingly, through our research we found individuals were more likely to roll when landing from higher drops. Our study subjects (nine men and two women) ranged in height from 1.58-1.87 metres, and in weight from 54–92 kg. </p>
<p>At some heights a two-footed landing is not feasible. But in this study the maximum drop height was only 2.4 m and some traceurs chose not to roll even at this height. </p>
<p>People with long legs can apply a smaller force over a longer time as they gradually flex their legs to absorb the momentum, and we found evidence that shorter traceurs rolled at lower heights. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257174/original/file-20190205-86236-p1fygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257174/original/file-20190205-86236-p1fygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257174/original/file-20190205-86236-p1fygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257174/original/file-20190205-86236-p1fygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257174/original/file-20190205-86236-p1fygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257174/original/file-20190205-86236-p1fygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257174/original/file-20190205-86236-p1fygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not Spiderman, but not far off.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/geishaboy500/2911049833/in/photolist-5reTGn-fguHV3-5rAUty-fgfA6V-5nZus1-7LvFYF-9rVSmr-fguFRq-e3FTJQ-e3Arjt-5hjMpb-5nZubS-c61UtQ-98Fov2-5hfqKR-5nVgKB-e3AnN2-5nZviW-fgfzGi-5nVhut-5nZvvf-5nZuB9-5rwAKi-5hjRuN-5rjeuh-5hfunD-5hjPAm-5nZugU-5nZxiS-5nZv7U-5hfuLZ-5hjMbY-5nZxoy-5Hak85-5reToF-iESoa-5nZwsb-SYydtu-5nZwxd-5rwzEa-5nVg4P-5nVgxX-5nZwHG-5reUdP-5nVgfV-5hjPNC-8vAAeu-5hjPjE-Tdoaex-5reTAV">THOR/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>People who weigh a lot have more momentum when dropping from the same height as lighter people. We found this influenced the likelihood of rolling – heavier athletes were more likely to choose a roll landing when dropping from a lower height. </p>
<p>Athletes with greater leg power appeared capable of managing impulse absorption through their legs up to a greater drop height. And those with less explosive leg power were more likely to transition to a roll landing at a lower height.</p>
<p>While you can’t do much about your height, you can change your body mass and leg power through training. In practice, this gives more flexibility because you can select a landing strategy based on the situation rather than having to roll to dissipate momentum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James L Croft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Run, leap, scramble…it’s parkour! Science can help you run up walls more efficiently, and chose the best way to land from a height.James L Croft, Lecturer, Motor Control and Skill Acquisition, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1064212018-11-09T15:02:06Z2018-11-09T15:02:06Z‘Socialism or barbarism’ is a false dichotomy that won’t help Labour get into government<p>Ideas matter in politics: they shape how we see the world. Of equal importance are the tropes – those recurrent themes which give shape to ideas and can pull a political movement towards the open fields of popular relevance or push them down the blind alley of sectarianism.</p>
<p>Take a recent incident. Responding to the election of right-wing populist, some say fascist, Jair Bolsonaro to the Brazilian presidency, Momentum tweeted: “<a href="https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1056678113281761280">The centre ground is crumbling. It’s either socialism or barbarism</a>.”</p>
<p>This trope was obediently repeated by many of Jeremy Corbyn’s other leading ideological outriders, <a href="https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1056964521674334208">including Owen Jones</a>, and afterwards echoed by innumerable others across social media. For them, the lesson of Bolsonaro’s victory was clear. Since the 2008 banking crash neoliberal capitalism has been in crisis – and, when push comes to shove, the politicians that Corbynites describe as “centrists” will back fascism rather than socialism in attempting to resolve it.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1056678113281761280"}"></div></p>
<p>Whatever its <a href="https://twitter.com/owenjones84/status/1056842195188285440">historic origins</a> and irrespective of being provoked by events in Brazil, “socialism or barbarism” was disseminated primarily to make a contemporary and parochial point. Only a Corbyn-led Labour government committed to the creation of a socialist economy will save Britain from a fascist answer to the crisis of neoliberalism.</p>
<p>As the hard left anticipates the prospect of power, the more it fears failure to achieve it. After the 2017 election, Labour felt confident of assuming office. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/04/the-labour-stagecoach-has-hit-a-bump-and-got-stuck-in-a-rut">That now looks much trickier</a>. The Corbynite imaginary – it’s values and images – therefore now alternates between dark forbidding shadows and a blinding sunlight. </p>
<p>This politics of dichotomy is aimed not at the far right but the centre left – Labour’s social democrats. These social democrats, the argument goes, are not only responsible for creating the present crisis but would hand the initiative to the far right should they ever regain influence in the party – or set up their own party. In the battle of “socialism and barbarism”, social democrats will always lean towards the latter because they want to make capitalism work. The hard left, meanwhile, sees capitalism as the source of all ills and wants it destroyed. </p>
<h2>The drama of dichotomy</h2>
<p>Once it didn’t matter too much what the hard left thought, as they only existed on Labour’s margins. But now they run the show and “socialism or barbarism” is a useful rhetorical device to undermine their centre-left rivals in the party. For this social democrats only have themselves to blame. That Corbyn found himself leader in 2015 is largely due to their own <a href="http://nottspolitics.org/2018/06/19/corbyns-critics-must-go-back-to-their-social-democratic-roots/">failure of ideas</a>. Committed to increasing equality through a largely capitalist economy, they have been befuddled by the complex problems posed by austerity and failed to develop a response that satisfied party members or the electorate. In contrast, Corbyn at least offers members certainty. Whether social democrats will find the ideas to fuel a future challenge to Corbynism remains a moot point.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1056667173865828354"}"></div></p>
<p>But if many Labour members find inspiration in the drama of dichotomy, those millions outside the Corbynite imaginary will wonder how far it matches their understanding of reality. The threat of fascism certainly seems remote. And while institutional racism exists in the UK, for instance within the ruling Conservative party, there is evidence that it is often stopped in its tracks. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/windrush-52562">Windrush revelations</a>, for instance, became a huge public scandal, and forced the home secretary to resign.</p>
<p>There is of course turmoil in Britain – the public realm is suffering due to austerity while the uncertainties of Brexit compound its inegalitarian impact. And many voters now support a readjustment in the relationship between government and the free market. Britain is however not necessarily enduring the kind of systemic crisis of capitalism of which Corbynites such as Paul Mason <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paul-mason-on-postcapitalism-why-the-world-economic-system-may-be-on-its-last-legs-1.3333672">enthusiastically write</a>.</p>
<p>But the biggest problem for those wishing to dichotomise politics is that few in the public think like they do. Majorities can in fact be found for policies that could form the basis for socialism and barbarism, such as both <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/08/06/support-radical-left-and-right/">nationalising the public utilities and banning all immigration</a>.</p>
<p>Inconveniently enough, while Momentum was proclaiming that the choice before Britons was “socialism or barbarism”, Labour’s parliamentary leadership made a nonsense of it by indulging in a classic piece of “centrism”. In his budget chancellor Philip Hammond proposed tax cuts, the value of almost half of which would go to the top 10% of households. Despite this, shadow chancellor John McDonnell, not wishing to alienate middle-ground voters who would gain from the cut, insisted Labour MPs support the measure.</p>
<p>“Socialism or barbarism” reflects how Corbynites think of politics. A morbid capitalism has to be transcended by socialism and a Corbyn-led government is the only hope of achieving that. But as McDonnell’s support for tax cuts and Corbyn’s own ambiguities on Brexit and immigration indicate, when the object is building an election-winning coalition, sincerely expressed rhetorical tropes often find themselves bumping into the imperative to reconcile different interests.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Fielding is a member of the Labour Party. </span></em></p>Momentum’s position is increasingly out of step with the Labour leadership’s on this issue.Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1033152018-09-23T11:31:24Z2018-09-23T11:31:24ZLabour: why Jeremy Corbyn still struggles to turn his dream of a social movement into reality<p>During his 2016 leadership campaign Jeremy Corbyn spoke to a packed meeting of supporters. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36872411">“We are a social movement,”</a> he said.</p>
<p>Corbyn has certainly overseen a transformation of the Labour Party. From fewer than 200,000 members prior to the 2015 election, he is largely responsible for its rise to more than 550,000 by the end of 2017. By some distance, Labour is now the largest UK political party.</p>
<p>But, Corbyn claims, Labour is more than a conventional party. If it is, that is thanks to Momentum, to which 40,000 Labour members belong – an organisation which styles itself as <a href="https://peoplesmomentum.com/about/">“people-powered”</a> and is fired by the ambition to “transform the Labour Party, our communities and Britain”. Growing out of Corbyn’s 2015 leadership campaign, Momentum employs methods associated with those social movements in which many of its leading figures cut their teeth. Many believe these new ways of doing politics helped Labour do unexpectedly well in the 2017 election by mobilising once disengaged younger voters.</p>
<p>On closer inspection, however, Labour looks little like a social movement. And Momentum’s activities are more conventional than its leaders would have you believe. But if Corbyn is to achieve in government the radical changes for which the left has campaigned since the 1970s, a social movement is precisely what Labour has to become.</p>
<p>The Labour left always <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-labour-20-years-on-assessing-the-legacy-of-the-tony-blair-years-76884">criticised</a> the party’s established parliamentary focus and strategy of winning over floating voters by promising modest reforms because – they believed – it meant Labour would never achieve transformative change. To do that, generations of leftists argued, the party needed to look beyond Westminster and mobilise the active participation of millions behind a full-blooded socialist programme. For the left, looking beyond parliament would offset the timidity of their own leaders and the awesome power of capitalism.</p>
<h2>Enter, Corbyn</h2>
<p>When elected as an MP in the 1980s, Corbyn urged Labour to focus less on the parliamentary game and build a campaigning organisation. Instead the Labour leadership pursued the parliamentary road – a process that culminated in Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide.</p>
<p>Two successive election defeats propelled Corbyn into the Labour leadership, still with an unchanged desire to transform society but now armed with the power to achieve it. And a large number of innovative social movements – most notably <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/occupy-movement-1734">Occupy</a> – were now emerging to challenge capitalism from the ground up, fired by a politics <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/impact-of-occupy-movement/">echoing many of Corbyn’s preoccupations</a>.</p>
<p>Corbyn encouraged some social movement activists to join the party. But as astute <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2034724">Corbyn sympathisers</a> have pointed out, a social movement has aims and methods very different to that of a political party. The latter aims to win votes based on the policies it proposes and to then apply them in government. But the former seeks something more profound: to challenge established ways of thinking and help ordinary people re-imagine their political capacities so they can become active agents in their own liberation. Merging the two approaches into one organisation capable of entering government would be unprecedented.</p>
<p>Pro-Corbyn journalist Paul Mason nonetheless believes Labour <a href="https://medium.com/mosquito-ridge/why-i-joined-momentum-e2e8311ea05c">can do this by</a> becoming “a horizontal, consensus-based organisation, directly accountable to its mass of members” – and indeed it must do this if Corbyn is to win power. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, argues that Labour needs to go even further once in government so as to unlock the peoples’ potential – especially as its radical economic programme <a href="https://newsocialist.org.uk/when-we-go-into-government/">will rely on</a> the “active engagement on a daily basis between government and civil society and the real experts on the shop floor”.</p>
<h2>Inspired but not acting</h2>
<p>But evidence that Labour has actually started to morph into a social movement is patchy. Momentum’s membership still represents less than 10% of Labour members. Local Momentum branches are working with the homeless, asylum seekers, women’s and youth groups as well as food banks. The political efficacy of such efforts however remains uncertain. In any case, the organisation has in the main focused on internal party matters: winning seats on the <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/momentum-labour-party-reforms-jon-lansman-jeremy-corbyn-nec-plp-mp-a8420806.html">National Executive Committee</a> (NEC) and ensuring the selection of approved candidates. </p>
<p>In this it has enjoyed some success, recently winning all nine NEC seats voted for by members, although its slate won little more than half of votes cast. And, despite Momentum’s attempt to generate enthusiasm, over two-thirds of Labour members <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2018/09/pro-corbyn-candidates-sweep-board-elections-labour-s-ruling-nec">failed to vote</a>. Perhaps even more surprisingly, earlier this year a similar proportion of Momentum members did not <a href="https://labourlist.org/2018/04/women-and-minorities-triumph-in-latest-momentum-election/">vote in elections</a> for the organisation’s own governing body.</p>
<p>It is undoubted that most Labour members approve of Corbyn. But their failure to even click online in support of his favoured NEC candidates suggest few are prepared to assume the arduous obligations of being a member of a social movement – something which requires an intense involvement in local communities. This is possibly because most who recently joined Labour are largely mature, former members who quit the party during the <a href="https://esrcpartymembersproject.org/2016/11/21/explaining-the-pro-corbyn-surge-in-labours-membership/#more-1222">Kinnock and Blair years</a>. They have a conventional view of political action. If they are the ones flocking to the Labour leader’s rallies and tweeting the hashtag #WeAreCorbyn, some see this as evidence more of a personality cult rather than of a social movement, many of which – like Occupy – are uncomfortable with the very concept of leadership.</p>
<p>The MP Clive Lewis <a href="https://twitter.com/labourlewis/status/1038890498298191873">tweeted recently about the party</a>, saying: “The birthing of something new is … painful. But at the end of that process something with immense potential is created. It will wobble. It will stumble. But with the right care & support, it will thrive.” </p>
<p>It is arguably too early for us to see a fully transformed Labour Party. Perhaps the party’s <a href="https://labour.org.uk/about/democracy-review-2017/">Democracy Review</a> will help it acquire the characteristics of a social movement: that is certainly the hope of many Corbynites.</p>
<p>An election is less than four years away. But Corbyn’s social movement is barely born. That means any government he leads will lack the kind of extra-parliamentary support the left has always considered necessary for the success of its transformative agenda. Lacking such support, therefore, a Corbyn government will ironically struggle to counter opposition from the City and business except through parliament – that is, just like every other Labour government that has come before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103315/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Fielding is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>Managing day-to-day politics and radically transforming the world is a big task.Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1031262018-09-14T12:03:32Z2018-09-14T12:03:32ZFree membership to revive Liberal Democrat fortunes? The prospects aren’t good<p>The Liberal Democrats are consulting on how to realise their idea of creating a supporters network – a free-to-join group that would expand the party’s activism beyond paid-up members. </p>
<p>These proposals would see the Liberal Democrats potentially follow the Labour Party in opening up their membership structures to supporters, and would give registered supporters a vote on the party leadership. But while the party would be following an established trend that, in Labour, has been strongly associated with the rise of Momentum, data from our recently conducted <a href="http://www.katedommett.com/current-research.html">ESRC party survey</a> shows that the proposal may not be such a good idea.</p>
<p>Over the past year, as part of a project looking at public attitudes towards political parties, we have conducted a national survey and workshops focused on unpicking people’s desires. At first glance, our findings show that the Liberal Democrats may be onto something. When we asked about opportunities for participation, we found a lot of support for the idea of more opportunities to get involved in parties. Specifically, we used a trade-off question to assess people’s views, asking:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Some people say that there should be more opportunities for ordinary people to get involved in political parties. Others say that there are already enough opportunities to get involved. On the following scale – where one means there should be more opportunities for people to be involved and four means there are enough opportunities to be involved already – where would you place yourself?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We found that 45% of people wanted more opportunities, while 34% felt that there were already enough. For nearly half of respondents, therefore, more opportunities to get involved were desired.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236441/original/file-20180914-177944-16r4nda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236441/original/file-20180914-177944-16r4nda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236441/original/file-20180914-177944-16r4nda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236441/original/file-20180914-177944-16r4nda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=263&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236441/original/file-20180914-177944-16r4nda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236441/original/file-20180914-177944-16r4nda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236441/original/file-20180914-177944-16r4nda.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>From this perspective, the idea of new participatory opportunities is attractive. But does that necessarily mean a network like the one being proposed by the Liberal Democrats is the right way to go about it? </p>
<p>We presented survey respondents with a range of different activities people could get involved in within parties and asked them what people should have to do to get involved. They could answer that people should have to be a party member, a supporter, have to sign up for information, or be able to get involved without doing any of these things. We also gave people the option of saying that party leaders, not the public, should conduct these activities.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236446/original/file-20180914-177941-lq5r0c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236446/original/file-20180914-177941-lq5r0c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236446/original/file-20180914-177941-lq5r0c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236446/original/file-20180914-177941-lq5r0c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=573&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236446/original/file-20180914-177941-lq5r0c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236446/original/file-20180914-177941-lq5r0c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236446/original/file-20180914-177941-lq5r0c.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=720&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Looking at the results, you can see that people’s views about what should be required for getting involved vary. For making party policy, 28% of people felt that this should be done by members, whereas for campaigning on specific issues, or engaging in political discussion and debate, people thought you should be able to get involved without doing anything.</p>
<p>For the Liberal Democrats, these results are interesting because we asked about people registering as a supporter. It’s clear that there wasn’t much interest in this idea. The most people selecting this option did so for campaigning to win elections (17%), but for the other options – such as discussion and debate and policy making – there was less positivity. Importantly for the Liberal Democrats, only 15% of people said they’d be interested in becoming a supporter in order to take part in a leadership election. More people (28%) felt selecting a leader should be up to party members.</p>
<p>From these results it appears that there is limited appetite for supporter networks. This finding was supported by another question we asked about the kind of activities people themselves had been involved with, and would consider doing in the future. We didn’t find much appetite for donating money to a party, being a party member or campaigning through a political organisation. Indeed, most respondents had no intention of getting involved in any of the activities we presented. On average, 59% of respondents answered that they had not done, and had no interest in doing any of these activities – a figure that grows to 66% when “Other” is removed.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236443/original/file-20180914-177944-17t6hrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/236443/original/file-20180914-177944-17t6hrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236443/original/file-20180914-177944-17t6hrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236443/original/file-20180914-177944-17t6hrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=280&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236443/original/file-20180914-177944-17t6hrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236443/original/file-20180914-177944-17t6hrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/236443/original/file-20180914-177944-17t6hrp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=352&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>Of specific interest, looking at becoming a registered party supporter, 67% said they had no intention of doing this in the future – only slightly less than the 69% who said they wouldn’t consider becoming a member.</p>
<p>On this evidence, there is little sign that introducing a supporters network to build a political movement will boost engagement with the Liberal Democrats. Moreover, there is evidence that linking a supporters scheme to the electing of a leader may not be popular. This initiative may therefore not deliver the desired returns and could, as Labour have found out, have some unintended consequences.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This research is based on a grant from the ESRC: ES/N01667X/1</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luke Temple receives funding from ESRC (grant number: ES/N01667X/1)</span></em></p>A national survey reveals a low level of interest in this kind of political activity.Katharine Dommett, Lecturer in the Public Understanding of Politics, University of SheffieldLuke Temple, Research Associate in Political Participation, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/917932018-08-09T11:43:06Z2018-08-09T11:43:06ZWe live in a populist age – but who are ‘the people’?<p>Populism is seemingly <a href="http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-populism/">sweeping the globe</a>, threatening the established status quo. Optimistically, it promises to bring about much needed change to what appears to be a corrupt political and economic order. More ominously, it is dangerously promoting racism, sexism, xenophobia, jingoism, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/country-chapters/dangerous-rise-of-populism">attacking basic human rights</a> around the world.</p>
<p>It is therefore important not to blithely <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/06/labours-populism-middle-classes">conflate</a> different populist and grassroots movements. The left-wing movements championing greater inclusion are plainly very different from right-wing ones keen on reinforced or increased exclusion. But despite their profound differences, they have one thing in common: they claim to represent a supposedly victimised popular majority, “the people”.</p>
<p>Exactly who these “people” actually are is far from clear. All sides are embroiled in an ongoing struggle to determine how to define which populations count and which do not. Lost in the public outcry regarding populism is a deeper conflict over who matters socially, economically and politically.</p>
<p>In the wake of the recent upsurge in populist movements, there have been a number of attempts to better define what the word “populism” actually describes. Perhaps the best and clearest recent definition comes from <a href="https://www.macmillanihe.com/resources/sample-chapters/9780230013490_sample.pdf">Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell</a>, who write that populism:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But populism doesn’t just appeal with an “us-versus-them” attack on elites; it also offers its supporters a passionate sense of solidarity. It mobilises individuals and communities under a common identity, one that can be socially invigorating and politically empowering. Populism is therefore an opportunity to dramatically redefine the political landscape, and to fill the relatively vacuous term of the “people” with any of various new meanings. </p>
<p>But just as some ideas of “the people” are exclusionary, others are radically inclusive.</p>
<h2>Different demands for different people</h2>
<p>The late political theorist <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/273-on-populist-reason">Ernesto Laclau</a> declared that at its roots, populism is linked to a specific politics – that even the most seemingly mundane protest can reveal the limitations of an existing system and the potential to establish something radically different. If those in power cannot meet these demands, they and the values they represent will suddenly look vulnerable and replaceable.</p>
<p>While Laclau was writing about the general logic of populism, the content of this demand matters greatly for the specifics of these fraught times. Calls for greater democracy, for instance, focus popular attention on democratising political and economic organisations. By contrast, fearmongering against immigrants (to take one example) seeks to restrict political power and economic benefits, making them the preserve of a chosen population.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1369148117701753">ideology</a> driving these demands and identities is therefore of paramount importance. The resurgence of authoritarian and fascist rhetoric speaks to the dangers of demagogues playing on the dissatisfaction of the majority for the creation of a more repressive and less equitable social order. However, the infusing of progressive ideals with a populist spirit can catalyse movements and identities that broaden politics to reach previously invisible groups.</p>
<h2>Narrow and broad</h2>
<p>Populism has the radical potential to foster not just exclusion, but greater inclusion. By instilling a shared sense of injustice, inclusive movements can alert their followers to the plight of other people whom they’ve been socialised to ignore, forging bonds first of empathy and then of solidarity. This in turn means their preferred definition of “the people” can be expanded to include more and more citizens.</p>
<p>In recent years, a number of scholars and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-populist-labour-donald-trump-boris-johnson-theresa-may-dangerous-a7795676.html">commentators</a> have challenged how far the label “populism” should be extended. They question whether figures such as Jeremy Corbyn should even be called populists, arguing that <a href="https://www.lwbooks.co.uk/renewal/25-3-4/corbyn%E2%80%99s-labour-and-the-populism-question">failing to make the distinction</a> between exclusive and inclusive movements reflects lazy and even disingenuous thinking. When any challenge to “sensible”, “moderate” politics is derided as populist regardless of its stated aims, the political dominance of the establishment is consolidated.</p>
<p>This argument for a tighter definition of populism is prudent, but inclusion-minded movements shouldn’t be let off the hook entirely. If movements on the left remain fixated on bringing down maligned or incompetent elites, they will tie themselves to a dangerous politics of sovereignty, one where the overriding goal is simply to take power. This is a very narrow vision. Instead, the imperative must be to find new ways to more equitably organise society and share power.</p>
<p>Ultimately, these sorts of political movements should always be thought of as beginnings, not ends in themselves. Radical, inclusive politics should be much more than a critique of those at the top; it needs to be an ongoing debate over who “we” are and how “we” can be empowered. In an age when the forces of xenophobia and nativism are on the rise, these concerns are perhaps more timely than ever before. Modern politics isn’t just a struggle between left-populists and right-populists: it’s a race to define and expand who the “people” are and what they can achieve together.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Bloom is a member of the Labour Party</span></em></p>Right-wing and left-wing populists both claim to speak for victimised or disenfranchised majorities. Here’s the difference.Peter Bloom, Senior Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Department of People and Organisation, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/964602018-06-12T20:33:22Z2018-06-12T20:33:22ZCurious Kids: What makes the Earth spin on its axis every day?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/222720/original/file-20180612-52455-d6et0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In fact, some things are slowing the Earth down or could change its spinning in the future.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This is an article from <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/curious-kids-36782">Curious Kids</a>, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they’d like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome – serious, weird or wacky!</em> </p>
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<p><strong>What makes the Earth spin on its axis every day? – Reid, age 5, Melbourne.</strong></p>
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<p>To answer this tricky question, we have to look back in time to when the Earth was born, 4.5 billion years ago. We have to ask: why did the Earth start spinning in the first place? </p>
<p>When our solar system formed out of a gas cloud, called a nebula, there was lots of dust and gas coming together due to the force of gravity. The dust and gas was already moving around in a circle. As it all clumped together to form the Sun and planets, these new objects started to spin – and then spin faster. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-do-our-ears-pop-97259">Curious Kids: Why do our ears pop?</a>
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<h2>How the spin sped up</h2>
<p>When you make a spinning object more compact, it spins faster. It’s just like how an ice skater or a ballerina brings in his or her arms when they want to spin faster. </p>
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<p>So when all of the rocks in the clump of dust and gas started coming together, that made the Earth’s spin speed up.</p>
<p>We’ve covered what made the Earth start spinning, and what made it pick up speed. But why does it <em>keep</em> spinning? </p>
<h2>Why the spin continues</h2>
<p>In theory, a spinning object will just keep spinning forever unless you add energy or take it away. </p>
<p>Imagine a spinning top. You <em>added</em> energy to it by starting the spin off with your hand. Eventually it stops because the ground it is spinning on is <em>taking energy away</em> from the toy top through something called friction. </p>
<p>Friction is where something rubs on or drags on an object and takes energy away. Have you ever slowed yourself down while you’re riding downhill by dragging your foot on the ground? That’s friction.</p>
<p>There’s not much friction in a fidget spinner toy. That’s why they can spin for so long.</p>
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<p>But eventually, even the air around you can cause friction and slow down a spinning top or a fidget spinner.</p>
<h2>Back to Earth</h2>
<p>Now imagine the Earth floating in space. It will keep spinning unless something slows it down. It would take a LOT of energy to slow down the spinning Earth because it is so big.</p>
<p>It’s not spinning on the ground, so the ground won’t slow it down. There’s no air outside our own atmosphere to slow it down either. That is why the Earth has continued to spin for a very long time.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-will-the-universe-expand-forever-or-contract-in-a-big-crunch-96209">Curious Kids: will the universe expand forever, or contract in a big crunch?</a>
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<p>However, some things <em>are</em> slowing the Earth down or could change its spinning in the future.</p>
<p>You might have heard that the Moon causes the waves and tides in our oceans. Because of this, the Earth is slowing down very slowly (about 1 second every 50,000 years). As a result, the Moon is also slowly moving away from us. </p>
<p>When the Earth and Moon were very new, the Moon was much closer (in fact it is thought that the Moon was once part of Earth but they came apart during an explosive collision with a huge asteroid.) </p>
<p>How do we know that? Well, scientists examining rocks realised that there used to be many more days in a year. In the age of the dinosaurs, a day was 22 hours rather than 24 hours that it is today.</p>
<p>The Sun’s gravitation also causes the Earth to slow down a bit too. And if an asteroid or comet hit the Earth, that might speed us up, slow us down or even knock us over (scientists think this may be what happened to Uranus, which is actually on its side - you can tell by the vertical stripes the clouds make rather than the horizontal ones you see on Earth, Jupiter and Saturn).</p>
<p>Here are some more cool planet spinning facts:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>All the planets have different day lengths. Mercury’s day is about 59 Earth days, while Jupiter’s day is only 10 Earth hours long. </p></li>
<li><p>Venus has the longest day (if you define day as meaning one full spin) of nearly 117 Earth days. It actually spins in the opposite direction to all of the other planets except Uranus.</p></li>
<li><p>These different day lengths are because of how the planets were formed and what knocked into them when they were very young.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. They can:</em></p>
<p><em>* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au
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* Tell us on <a href="https://twitter.com/ConversationEDU">Twitter</a></em></p>
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<p>_Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacinta den Besten does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>To answer this tricky question, we have to look back in time to when the Earth was born, 4.5 billion years ago.Jacinta den Besten, First Year Physics Coordinator, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/943112018-04-03T15:16:15Z2018-04-03T15:16:15ZLabour, Jeremy Corbyn and four fault lines that will now define the party<p>“What did last week reveal about the state of Labour?” the journalist Helen Lewis <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/if-corbyn-is-not-to-appear-a-passenger-he-must-learn-to-lead">asked</a> in the midst of fresh calls for more action to tackle antisemitism in the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/luciana-berger-four-types-of-vicious-abuse-just-one-way-to-deal-with-it-xdd2c903z">party</a>. Jeremy Corbyn’s own actions, and the time it took for him to apologise for the issue, have also come in for scrutiny. Lewis concluded that “Corbyn’s strengths as a speaker are matched by his weakness as an actor. That some supporters believe any criticism must be motivated by jealousy, disloyalty or factionalism. And that there is no appetite for a breakaway party or another doomed attempt to topple him”.</p>
<p>Prior to Lewis’ compelling article, another columnist, Rafael Behr, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/27/dissident-mps-westminster-blairites-tories">noted</a> that the “unfolded triptych” of Corbyn’s responses – or lack thereof – to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/sergei-skripal-50988">Skripal Salisbury attack</a>, antisemitism and Brexit necessarily raised questions over Labour’s future.</p>
<p>As we approach a year since Theresa May decided to call an election which severely damaged her own political standing, and enhanced Corbyn’s, a look at the state of Corbynism is apposite. How can it be understood, and from where does it draw its power?</p>
<p>Analysing the Labour party through the different interpretations of its ethos – what it means to be Labour – can help form a broader understanding than that gained from looking at party policy or organisation alone. This can be done through analysing different positions taken along key fault lines in Labour’s ethos. </p>
<p>There’s the role of theoretical revision and the renewal of party aims; the idea that individual policies – rather than values – become symbolic of a person’s socialism; decision-making within the party; and the balance between “instrumental” politics (concerned with the attainment of power) and “expressive” politics (the defence of principle).</p>
<h2>Party goals</h2>
<p>The Corbynite ethos, certainly in terms of the leadership, is reasonably clear. So far there is little sign that theoretical revision or reforming party objects is a priority. That isn’t to say Corbyn’s leadership is not ideologically distinctive – it clearly is – but there hasn’t been a sustained effort to revise the party’s aims and values. </p>
<p>When he first became leader, Corbyn swiftly disowned a rumour that he was planning to revise Tony Blair’s amendment to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/09/clause-iv-of-labour-party-constitution-what-is-all-the-fuss-about-reinstating-it">clause IV</a> of the party constitution. Since 1918, clause IV has been regarded as an anachronistic shibboleth or a timeless call to arms, depending on a person’s view of public ownership (that is the people, through the state, owning large parts of the means of production, distribution and exchange in the economy).</p>
<p>Corbynite political economy is avowedly interventionist (as demonstrated by the <a href="https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/labour-manifesto-2017.pdf">2017 manifesto</a>), and Labour’s series of events on its <a href="https://labour.org.uk/new-economics/">“new economics”</a> contributes something, but the Corbyn programme is not underpinned by a clearly articulated alternative worldview. Indeed, the slogan “the many, not the few” was printed on New Labour’s membership cards. The “party objects”, then, remain those written in 1994. What aspects of Labour’s doctrine to focus on remains up to individual Labour people.</p>
<h2>Policy as faith</h2>
<p>Shorn of a coherent theoretical basis for the party’s socialism, some Labour policies can become emblematic of the party’s worldview. This is more prevalent in the Corbynite ethos. Public ownership – with the usual caveats of what form it will take – has been reinstated as part of Labour’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41379849">socialist identity</a>, for example.</p>
<p>This is a longstanding characteristic of Labour’s ethos. A “means” becomes symbolic of values, engaging with socialist history and acting as a “glue” for the movement. Labour’s commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament, despite it being considered electorally harmful in the mid-1980s, was maintained because the party leadership judged changing it a step too far for the movement at the time. At times of strife, certain policies also become factional tools – as has happened in the party’s past with public ownership and nuclear weapons, with support or opposition to both used to symbolise affiliation with Labour’s left and right.</p>
<h2>Making decisions</h2>
<p>The fiercest debates about Labour’s immediate future should be expected in the area of internal democracy, particularly while the Corbynite left is seeking to reform the process of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/19/labour-democracy-review-asks-nec-to-agree-more-powers-for-member">intra-party decision-making</a>.</p>
<p>As has long been the case, arguments from across the Labour party around the question of “who decides what” will have some merit – though of course each argument will also have a seemingly all-important factional edge. While Corbynism posits enhanced party democracy in its interpretation of Labour’s ethos, it isn’t a simple democratic/non-democratic equation. The Corbyn leadership operation, including Momentum, has demonstrated its appetite for “grip”. It has, for example, been known to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/25/how-momentum-stopped-vote-single-market-labour-conference">select issues for debate</a> at conference which work better for the leader. That’s the very kind of party management for which previous leaderships have been attacked.</p>
<h2>Instrumental vs expressive</h2>
<p>That leaves the relative priority given to instrumental and expressive politics. The Corbynite ethos has been orientated towards the expressive (something shared, historically, with the majority of Labour members), yet there are <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36775102">interesting debates</a> on the Labour left about what Corbynism means for Labour’s tradition of “parliamentary socialism” when factoring in the place and role of Momentum, the campaigning organisation set up to support Corbyn.</p>
<p>There’s also frustration with Corbyn’s Brexit stance within Labour. One could argue a more pro-European approach would be “expressive” of the party’s principles, and that Corbyn is adopting a more “instrumental” electoral line by avoiding taking a firm stance in either direction. Similarly, Europe is a trigger point for attitudes to party democracy. Labour’s pro-European membership could challenge the frontbench position. Yet, agree or disagree with the Labour campaign to stay in the <a href="https://www.labour4singlemarket.org/">single market</a>, such a policy does not represent an alternative to Corbynism as an identity, it is simply a policy (however vital people may judge it to be).</p>
<p>There are substantive differences along the four fault lines identified above, though they are rarely expressed. The extent to which they are debated and resolved will in part define what it is to be Labour in the months and years ahead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94311/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl Pike is a member of the Labour Party in Tower Hamlets.</span></em></p>As the party faces more internal strife over antisemitism, it’s worth considering what Labour stands for.Karl Pike, PhD candidate and Teaching Associate, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/855052017-10-12T14:51:01Z2017-10-12T14:51:01ZAcid Corbynism: an experimental politics for testing times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189627/original/file-20171010-17676-1hnphw5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/duncan/34397885834/in/photolist-UpCa49-WdBQUe-WacKD1-Upf6T1-88dRYf-WacNkd-VRW4kw-6boMy4-dUhapk-GdfuAs-B2VPP-VyKGfj-WfAZZz-7GMcAe-T5BjPU-iSEmNr-4X1et4-BXMUVR-7R3v8o-JVU2iA-UwW3zu-nQEWht-V4K5zC-WacFnW-XdeU7j-WacJZL-9bBdFG-GcsnBy-WdBRUk-KLMcFU-UWhRfW-UDv5AF-VGUWSZ-V4DADJ-VhMJuQ-UVLAG9-UAvyYm-WdBQxn-UZ8Dfx-W28muX-UnnEx1-3iY8XT-Vt2Usy-VpmzMj-UZ8HwD-rbLsn-FoZDEV-W28mMa-UZ9w4M-WdBQsT">duncan c</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>At The World Transformed, a festival held by members of <a href="http://www.peoplesmomentum.com/">Momentum</a> at the same time as the Labour Party conference, one session in particular attracted attention – a panel discussion on “Acid Corbynism”.</p>
<p>The title was an explicit allusion to “Acid Communism”. This was a phrase used by the cultural theorist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/18/mark-fisher-k-punk-blogs-did-48-politics">Mark Fisher</a> shortly before his untimely death earlier this year. It was the title of his putative next book and the name for the general political sensibility it would celebrate. </p>
<p>That sensibility was one shared by various exponents of countercultural politics – especially, but not exclusively, in the 1960s and 1970s. It would reject both authoritarianism and individualism in the name of a utopian ideal of collective liberation and raised political consciousness. Fisher derived the phrase directly from a quote he came across describing radical anti-psychiatrist R D Laing as an “acid Marxist”.</p>
<p>Fisher himself was never much interested in psychedelics. But as <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/business/people/academic/dr-keir-milburn">Keir Milburn</a> pointed out during the panel discussion in Brighton, he was fascinated by the apparent relationship between psychedelic culture and various forms of utopian “popular modernism” (such as the sonic experimentalism of the Beatles between 1965 and 1968).</p>
<p>The jokey, deliberately provocative title “Acid Corbynism” was thought up by Labour activist Matt Phull. It was an invitation to explore a range of political, cultural and philosophical themes which Mark and I had explored in our work separately and together – in my case, particularly in my 2014 book <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183p7m6">Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism</a>. We wanted to think about how those themes might inform a mainstream progressive politics for the 21st century.</p>
<p>But why “Corbynism” rather than “Communism”? Precisely because the question is how countercultural utopianism might come to inform an actual concrete programme for government.</p>
<p>And why “Acid”? Because the persistence of psychedelic culture since the 1950s stands out as a particularly striking example of a deliberate attempt to change the world for the better through radically new ways of perceiving and experiencing. </p>
<p>Personally, I might be more interested in using cultural theory to alter my students’ view of their place in the world (it’s safer, cheaper and legal). But the reference to “acid” in the title of the conference session was, if nothing else, an interestingly provocative metaphor. It hinted at just how radical the transformation of perceptions we need might be. If we really want to overcome the ideological effects of neoliberalism in contemporary culture, bold thinking is called for.</p>
<p>A range of philosophical and political issues are raised by a radical rejection of individualist thought. “Individualism” doesn’t simply designate casual selfishness, but a world-view which denies or overlooks the inherent complexity of all phenomena. Any kind of truly democratic politics or culture must enable people to find ways to express that inherent complexity. That might mean promoting deliberative and participatory democracy in local government, or valorising cultural forms that create opportunities for unpredictable forms of connection and expression to materialise. </p>
<p>Dance music cultures since the 1970s, such as disco and rave, have often been hailed as examples of such cultural forms. This is something scholars such as <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000FBF950/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">myself</a>, <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/love-saves-the-day">Tim Lawrence</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/this-our-house-cultural-technologies/dp/1857422422">Hillegonda Rietveld</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/hot-stuff-remaking-american-culture/dp/0393338916">Alice Echols</a> and <a href="https://dj.dancecult.net">others</a> have written about.</p>
<p>This is not to say that any of us would endorse a naive view of the social function or political valency of the dance music tradition. But all of us have observed in different ways that, since the early days of disco in the 1970s, these cultures have tried to create a different kind of social space. In these spaces, intense interaction between members of various social groups becomes possible in ways that might not ordinarily be the case in the modern urban context.</p>
<p>The aims of the entire <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/r/relational-aesthetics">“relational art”</a> movement (arguably one of the dominant tendencies in the global art scene of recent years) could be understood in precisely these terms. Yet it would be highly debatable whether any art show has ever realised those objectives as successfully as a good club night.</p>
<h2>21st century thinking</h2>
<p>On the other hand, it’s also undeniable that the utopian implications of dance culture have more often than not been entirely neutralised by the force of commercialism, sexism and elitism. They have been defeated by the same social and political forces which have made it so difficult for left politics or radical culture to win any new ground since the 1970s. The issue here is therefore not to idealise it but to ask what it might mean to articulate a politics informed by the same desire for collective participation and creative experimentation which has drawn so many people to it since the 1970s.</p>
<p>“Acid Corbynism” is not just a provocation to reconsider the legacy of counterculture. It’s also an invitation to think about what a radically democratic politics might mean in the 21st century. It’s a suggestion that we question what kind of culture, and ultimately what kind of people, we want to produce.</p>
<p>In the field of education, for example, if we are to move beyond the neoliberal assumption that the only real aim of education is to produce competitive entrepreneurial individuals for the labour market, then we will have to ask ourselves what kind of people and culture we’re trying to be. Surely in part the answer must be that we want a culture in which people are able to get to grips with the deep interrelation between their interests and those of other people and all other living things. It’s hard to imagine any resolution to the current environmental crisis without that.</p>
<p>Ultimately, then, “Acid Corbynism” isn’t a clearly-defined political philosophy. But it is also more than just a joke intended to generate publicity and column inches. It is an invitation to reflect on what it might mean for mainstream left politics to accept that the radicals of the counterculture were asking all the right questions about what it might mean to live together in a sustainable way. It’s asking whether some of their proposed solutions (from cooperative housing to renewable energy) are ones that we cannot afford to ignore.</p>
<p>After the clear failures of both conventional social democracy and the neoliberal policies of recent decades, there can be little question that we need new forms of democratic politics which take a self-consciously creative and innovative attitude to the resolution of social and political problems. If Acid Corbynism calls for anything, it is for what Maurizio Lazzarato, thinking along similar lines, calls <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/experimental-politics">“experimental politics”</a>. As the ecological catastrophe deepens, and the destructive effects of neoliberalism on our social fabric become intolerable, this seems like an eminently reasonable position to take.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85505/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Gilbert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It might sound funny but we need fresh thinking to face up to 21st century challenges. This is one way of looking at the problem.Jeremy Gilbert, Professor of Cultural and Political Theory, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/832562017-08-30T15:50:19Z2017-08-30T15:50:19ZFuture of UK Labour party will be in the hands of next Scottish leader<p>The timing of the resignation of Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale may have come as a surprise, but her decision to step down after just two years has not. The eighth Scottish Labour leader to come and go since the creation of the Scottish parliament in 1999, her legacy is one of managed decline. </p>
<p>Yes, she leaves the party with seven seats in Scotland compared to just one before the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-40246330">recent UK election</a>, but most commentators put this <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/05/labour-launching-stealthy-scottish-comeback-thanks-jeremy-corbyn-and-daily">down to</a> UK leader Jeremy Corbyn’s performance. Her real legacy is the party’s slump to third behind the SNP and the Conservatives in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2016/scotland/results">Scottish parliament elections</a> of 2016 and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39846268">council elections</a> of 2017. </p>
<p>Indeed, the party’s recent revival cemented Dugdale’s problems: she comes from the right of the party and is among Corbyn’s opponents. Her departure creates an opportunity for someone with less baggage to stem the Conservative bounce under <a href="https://theconversation.com/ruth-davidson-as-conservative-leader-shed-have-to-clear-these-hurdles-81577">Ruth Davidson</a> and take on the flagging SNP. It also matters greatly at UK level: it could yet come to be seen as a key moment in completing the Corbynite left’s takeover of the party. </p>
<h2>Could she have stayed?</h2>
<p>Dugdale was always likely to be in difficulty <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-37150430">after backing</a> Owen Smith for the UK leadership last year, signalling that she thought Corbyn was not fit to continue in the job. The Scottish party did diverge from the rest of Labour by <a href="https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/scotland-only-part-uk-where-owen-smith-beat-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-contest">voting for</a> Smith over Corbyn, and Dugdale may have assumed there had been no discernible Corbyn effect in Scotland. She would hardly have been alone in this assumption. She badly miscalculated, however. </p>
<p>This arguably led her to mishandle the UK election. The Scottish Labour left <a href="http://www.campaignforsocialism.org.uk/articles/2017/7/19/helicopter-view-of-the-2017-ge-resultsa-tale-oftwo-parties">believes</a> the party could have performed even better had it recognised Corbyn’s campaign and policies as a strength and targeted former heartland seats lost to the SNP. A UK leader who appealed both to traditional Labour and younger voters might have been viewed as a positive. </p>
<p>The party has at times given the impression of being more focused on opposing the SNP and independence than its own agenda. This has allowed Labour to be squeezed in Scottish elections by a narrative around the constitution, caught between independence and the more staunchly unionist Conservatives. </p>
<p>The UK election success was unlikely to be repeated in the next Scottish parliamentary election in 2021. The focus would be on Dugdale not Corbyn (or his successor). Whether she could have appealed to those <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/laurie-macfarlane/five-reasons-why-snp-lost-seats-in-general-election">who switched</a> from the SNP to Labour this year is doubtful. </p>
<h2>The wider war</h2>
<p>The forthcoming leadership election in Scotland will be one of the most important since 1999. Rather than a clash of personalities, it is far more likely to be a battle between the left and right of the party, while the wider UK ramifications should keep the London media interested. </p>
<p>Corbyn’s instincts for changing the party have so far been held at bay by the ruling National Executive (NEC). Until now, Dugdale’s position on the NEC had meant that his opponents <a href="https://order-order.com/2017/08/30/corbynistas-gloat-kezia-quitting-gives-them-nec-majority/">controlled the</a> committee by 18 votes to 17. </p>
<p>Her deputy Alex Rowley now holds the balance of power. Mentored by Gordon Brown, his politics are a matter of debate. Fraser Nelson in The Spectator <a href="https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/08/was-kezia-dugdale-forced-out-by-the-corbynistas/">recently claimed</a> he was a Corbynite. I suspect he is more traditional Labour, pro-trade union, pro-home rule, but time will tell. </p>
<p>At any rate, a Corbynite successor in Scotland would tilt NEC control in the UK leader’s favour - and Rowley has <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/alex-rowley-rules-out-labour-leadership-bid-1-4546713">ruled out</a> putting his name forward for the permanent role. One crucial issue for Corbyn is changing the rules and threshold for leadership candidates to benefit his presumably hand-picked successor. </p>
<p>He famously only got on the ballot in 2015 because certain Labour MPs wanted all wings of the party represented and needed to help the left overcome the current requirement for backing from 15% of MPs. They won’t make this mistake again – they <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/08/labour-must-allow-all-members-leadership-vote-court-rules">went to court</a> to try and prevent Corbyn standing for re-election last year, when he only got around the threshold rule because he was leader. </p>
<p>At the same time, Scotland matters greatly to Corbyn for other reasons: his relatively weak performance there helped hand 10 Downing Street to Theresa May. He has duly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/23/labour-is-coming-back-in-scotland-party-predicts-revival-as-corbyn-heads-north">just completed</a> a tour of Scottish constituencies. </p>
<h2>Runners and riders</h2>
<p>So who could replace Dugdale? The most high-profile figure on the left is probably Neil Findlay MSP. He stood unsuccessfully against Jim Murphy in 2015 and was Corbyn’s campaign chief in Scotland later the same year. He recently made headlines with a memoir in which he strongly <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/neil-findlay-hits-out-at-insincere-jim-murphy-in-new-book-1-4543632">attacks</a> Murphy, while he is also convenor of the <a href="http://www.campaignforsocialism.org.uk">Campaign for Socialism</a> (CfS). </p>
<p>The CfS could be vital in galvanising voters on the left in Scotland in future: its existence meant that Momentum, Corbyn’s leftist grassroots movement, did not emerge north of the border in the same way as in England and Wales. Many radical Scottish voters were instead drawn into supporting independence. </p>
<p>Yet like Cowley, Findlay has <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/neil-findlay-rules-out-scottish-labour-leadership-bid-1-4546231">already said</a> he will not stand in the contest. It will be fascinating to see whether he holds to this. He may end up playing kingmaker – perhaps to <a href="http://www.thenational.scot/news/15503917.Richard_Leonard_is__likely__to_run_for_Scottish_Labour_leadership_position/">Richard Leonard</a>, another MSP and CfS member who is a former trade union leader but does not have a high profile. Corbynites in London are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/30/labour-urges-swift-contest-to-replace-kezia-dugdale-as-scottish-leader">now reportedly signalling</a> an interest in a long contest, potentially to let a more junior candidate on the left gain traction – or perhaps to maintain the current NEC up to and through the <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/pages/annual-conference-2017">party conference</a> in late September. </p>
<p>From the other side of the party, it is highly likely an anti-Corbyn candidate will stand. Perhaps Ian Murray, Edinburgh South MP. The rules do not prevent an MP from standing, as we saw when Murphy became leader. Murray has been a consistent Corbyn critic. Building a power base outside Westminster in the current climate may appeal to him. </p>
<p>The bookmakers’ <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/who-is-bookies-favourite-to-be-next-scottish-labour-leader-1-4546334">early favourite</a> is Anas Sarwar. Previously Scottish deputy leader and now Holyrood health spokesman, he could present himself as a transformative candidate for change who could unite and rebrand the Scottish party. </p>
<p>What of the women? A campaign by Jenny Marra, tipped in the past as a potential leader, would prevent accusations of an all-male list. Jackie Baillie is another possibility.</p>
<p>Whoever succeeds will have no small task in reinvigorating and reinventing a party whose traditional strengths in local government and the trade unions have been greatly weakened. Their mission will be to succeed where previous leaders have failed and forge a new coalition of voters in Scotland. It is not for the faint-hearted. Watch this space to see who steps up to the plate in the coming days.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William McDougall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why this is arguably the most important Labour leadership election in Scotland since 1999.William McDougall, Lecturer in Politics, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/747862017-03-27T02:38:25Z2017-03-27T02:38:25ZMomentum isn’t magic – vindicating the hot hand with the mathematics of streaks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162474/original/image-20170325-12136-o0fy7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=72%2C0%2C5489%2C3574&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When a player's on fire, is it hot hands?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/basketball-player-413840878">Basketball image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s NCAA basketball tournament season, known for its magical moments and the “March Madness” it can produce. Many fans remember <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJBgFvbod2I">Stephen Curry’s superhuman 2008 performance</a> where he led underdog Davidson College to victory while nearly outscoring the entire determined Gonzaga team by himself in the second half. Was Curry’s magic merely a product of his skill, the match-ups and random luck, or was there something special within him that day?</p>
<p>Nearly every basketball player, coach or fan believes that some shooters have an uncanny tendency to experience the hot hand – also referred to as being “on fire,” “in the zone,” “in rhythm” or “unconscious.” The idea is that on occasion these players enter into a special state in which their ability to make shots is noticeably better than usual. When people see a streak, like Craig Hodges <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woZham-kFnI">hitting 19 3-pointers in a row</a>, or other <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nyBpt9tRsg">exceptional performances</a>, they typically attribute it to the hot hand.</p>
<p>The hot hand makes intuitive sense. For instance, you can probably recall a situation, in sports or otherwise, in which you felt like you had momentum on your side – your body was in sync, your mind was focused and you were in a confident mood. In these moments of <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Flow_in_Sports.html?id=Jak4A8rEZawC">flow</a> success feels inevitable, and effortless. </p>
<p>However, if you go to the <a href="http://www.ncaa.org/health-and-safety/nutrition-and-performance/hot-hand">NCAA’s website</a>, you’ll read that this intuition is incorrect – the hot hand does not exist. Belief in the hot hand is just a delusion that occurs because we as humans have a predisposition to see patterns in randomness; we see streakiness even though shooting data are essentially random. Indeed, this view has been held for the past 30 years among scientists who study judgment and decision-making. Even Nobel Prize winner <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/kahneman-facts.html">Daniel Kahneman</a> affirmed <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=w_fYZZPcgpkC&pg=PT157&dq=%22Tom+Gilovich,+Robert+Vallone,+and+Amos+Tversky+(1985)+demonstrated+empirically+that+the+hot+hand+does+not+exist.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikwc_k1e_SAhVLllQKHQ35Bd8Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=%22Tom%20Gilovich%2C%20Robert%20Vallone%2C%20and%20Amos%20Tversky%20(1985)%20demonstrated%20empirically%20that%20the%20hot%20hand%20does%20not%20exist.%22&f=false">this consensus</a>: “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TA7Q27RWlj0C&pg=PT173&dq=%22The+hot+hand+is+a+massive+and+widespread+cognitive+illusion%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8jb6clujSAhXrjlQKHZUgB1UQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=%22The%20hot%20hand%20is%20a%20massive%20and%20widespread%20cognitive%20illusion%22&f=false">The hot hand is a massive and widespread cognitive illusion</a>.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2627354">recent work</a> has uncovered critical flaws in the research which underlies this consensus. In fact, these flaws are sufficient to not only invalidate the most compelling evidence against the hot hand, but even to vindicate the belief in streakiness.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=303&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162473/original/image-20170325-12157-6y6n5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sometimes it feels like a player just can’t miss. Is there a truth to this feeling, or is it a delusion?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/NCAA-Davidson-Kansas-Basketball/6c86019f02784f7b979b8c8a7cb180d0/1/0">AP Photo/Michael Conroy</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Research made it the ‘hot hand fallacy’</h2>
<p>In the landmark 1985 paper “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0010-0285(85)90010-6">The hot hand in basketball: On the misperception of random sequences</a>,” psychologists Thomas Gilovich, Robert Vallone and Amos Tversky (GVT, for short) found that when studying basketball shooting data, the sequences of makes and misses are indistinguishable from the sequences of heads and tails one would expect to see from flipping a coin repeatedly.</p>
<p>Just as a gambler will get an occasional streak when flipping a coin, a basketball player will produce an occasional streak when shooting the ball. GVT concluded that the hot hand is a “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.103.3.582">cognitive illusion</a>”; people’s tendency to detect patterns in randomness, to see perfectly typical streaks as atypical, led them to believe in an illusory hot hand.</p>
<p>GVT’s conclusion that the hot hand doesn’t exist was initially dismissed out of hand by practitioners; legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach famously said: “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=LURGkHCPAJEC&lpg=PA17&dq=%22Who%20is%20this%20guy%3F%20So%20he%20makes%20a%20study.%20I%20couldn%E2%80%99t%20care%20less.%22&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q=%22Who%20is%20this%20guy?%20So%20he%20makes%20a%20study.%20I%20couldn%E2%80%99t%20care%20less.%22&f=false">Who is this guy? So he makes a study. I couldn’t care less.</a>” The academic response was no less critical, but Tversky and Gilovich successfully defended their work, while <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09332480.1989.10554951">uncovering critical flaws</a> in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09332480.1989.10554950">studies that challenged it</a>. While there remained some <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2012.07.005">isolated skepticism</a>, GVT’s result was accepted as the scientific consensus, and the “hot hand fallacy” was born.</p>
<p>Importantly, GVT found that professional practitioners (players and coaches) not only were victims of the fallacy, but that their belief in the hot hand was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oZ7bCte5_xUC&pg=PA229&lpg=PA229&dq=%22I%27ve+been+in+a+thousand+arguments+over+this+topic.+I%27ve+won+them+all,+and+I%27ve+convinced+no+one.%22&source=bl&ots=wk7Lg29Osn&sig=8cvkQHFQzxkky7ScbQ-L_QlYKdk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQ19Ki0-_SAhUmrVQKHfUKCDUQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=%22I've%20been%20in%20a%20thousand%20arguments%20over%20this%20topic.%20I've%20won%20them%20all%2C%20and%20I've%20convinced%20no%20one.%22&f=false">stubbornly fixed</a>. The power of GVT’s result had a profound influence on how psychologists and economists think about decision-making in domains where information arrives over time. As GVT’s result was extrapolated into areas outside of basketball, the hot hand fallacy became a cultural meme. From <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=fAsZGQfmXG8C&pg=PA150&dq=%22hot+hand%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiR8Z-myujSAhVB32MKHSQ7BVgQ6AEI-QEwKQ#v=onepage&q=%22hot%20hand%22&f=false">financial investing</a> to <a href="http://www.psychologyofgames.com/2009/12/hot-hand-fallacy-and-kill-streaks-in-modern-warfare-2/">video gaming</a>, the notion that momentum could exist in human performance came to be viewed as incorrect by default.</p>
<p>The pedantic “No, actually” commentators were given a license to throw cold water on the hot hand believers.</p>
<h2>Taking another look at the probabilities</h2>
<p>In what turns out to be an ironic twist, we’ve recently found <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=w_fYZZPcgpkC&pg=PT157&dq=%22Tom+Gilovich,+Robert+Vallone,+and+Amos+Tversky+(1985)+demonstrated+empirically+that+the+hot+hand+does+not+exist.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikwc_k1e_SAhVLllQKHQ35Bd8Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=%22Tom%20Gilovich%2C%20Robert%20Vallone%2C%20and%20Amos%20Tversky%20(1985)%20demonstrated%20empirically%20that%20the%20hot%20hand%20does%20not%20exist.%22&f=false">this consensus view</a> rests on a subtle – but crucial – misconception regarding the behavior of random sequences. In GVT’s critical test of hot hand shooting conducted on the Cornell University basketball team, they examined whether players shot better when on a streak of hits than when on a streak of misses. In this intuitive test, players’ field goal percentages were not markedly greater after streaks of makes than after streaks of misses. </p>
<p>GVT made the implicit assumption that the pattern they observed from the Cornell shooters is what you would expect to see if each player’s sequence of 100 shot outcomes were determined by coin flips. That is, the percentage of heads should be similar for the flips that follow streaks of heads, and the flips that follow streaks of misses.</p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2627354">Our surprising finding</a> is that this appealing intuition is incorrect. For example, imagine flipping a coin 100 times and then collecting all the flips in which the preceding three flips are heads. While one would intuitively expect that the percentage of heads on these flips would be 50 percent, instead, it’s less.</p>
<p>Here’s why.</p>
<p>Suppose a researcher looks at the data from a sequence of 100 coin flips, collects all the flips for which the previous three flips are heads and inspects one of these flips. To visualize this, imagine the researcher taking these collected flips, putting them in a bucket and choosing one at random. The chance the chosen flip is a heads – equal to the percentage of heads in the bucket – we claim is less than 50 percent.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162461/original/image-20170325-12132-zusuhs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The percentage of heads on the flips that follow a streak of three heads can be viewed as the chance of choosing heads from a bucket consisting of all the flips that follow a streak of three heads.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Miller and Sanjurjo</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To see this, let’s say the researcher happens to choose flip 42 from the bucket. Now it’s true that if the researcher were to inspect flip 42 before examining the sequence, then the chance of it being heads would be exactly 50/50, as we intuitively expect. But the researcher looked at the sequence first, and collected flip 42 because it was one of the flips for which the previous three flips were heads. Why does this make it more likely that flip 42 would be tails rather than a heads?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=159&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=159&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=159&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162426/original/image-20170324-12152-4hranj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=200&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Why tails is more likely when choosing a flip from the bucket.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Miller and Sanjurjo</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If flip 42 were heads, then flips 39, 40, 41 and 42 would be HHHH. This would mean that flip 43 would also follow three heads, and the researcher could have chosen flip 43 rather than flip 42 (but didn’t). If flip 42 were tails, then flips 39 through 42 would be HHHT, and the researcher would be restricted from choosing flip 43 (or 44, or 45). This implies that in the world in which flip 42 is tails (HHHT) flip 42 is more likely to be chosen as there are (on average) fewer eligible flips in the sequence from which to choose than in the world in which flip 42 is heads (HHHH).</p>
<p>This reasoning holds for any flip the researcher might choose from the bucket (unless it happens to be the final flip of the sequence). The world HHHT, in which the researcher has fewer eligible flips besides the chosen flip, restricts his choice more than world HHHH, and makes him more likely to choose the flip that he chose. This makes world HHHT more likely, and consequentially makes tails more likely than heads on the chosen flip. </p>
<p>In other words, selecting which part of the data to analyze based on information regarding where streaks are located within the data, restricts your choice, and changes the odds.</p>
<p>The complete proof can be found in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2627354">our working paper</a> that’s available online. Our reasoning here applies what’s known as the principle of restricted choice, which <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/30/arts/bridge-restricted-choice.html">comes up in the card game bridge</a>, and is the intuition behind the formal mathematical procedure for updating beliefs based on new information, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference">Bayesian inference</a>. In <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2709837">another one of our working papers</a>, which links our result to various probability puzzles and statistical biases, we found that the simplest version of our problem is nearly equivalent to <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9821256/monty-hall-problem-mansplainers">the famous Monty Hall problem</a>, which <a href="https://sites.oxy.edu/lengyel/M372/Vazsonyi2003/vazs30_1.pdf">stumped the eminent mathematician Paul Erdős</a> and many other <a href="http://marilynvossavant.com/game-show-problem/">smart people</a>.</p>
<p>We observed a similar phenomenon; smart people were convinced that the bias we found couldn’t be true, which led to <a href="http://andrewgelman.com/2016/02/18/miller-and-sanjurjo-share-5-tips-on-how-to-hit-the-zeitgeist-jackpot/">interesting email exchanges</a> and spirited posts to internet forums (<a href="http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/47/science-math-philosophy/coin-flips-only-40-likely-flip-heads-after-heads-1562992/">TwoPlusTwo</a>, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/3mtcjf/why_is_a_coin_less_likely_to_be_heads_immediately/">Reddit</a>, <a href="http://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/6489/did-previous-researchers-fail-to-detect-the-hot-hand-simply-because-of-a-statist">StackExchange</a>) and the comment sections of academic blogs (<a href="http://andrewgelman.com/2015/07/09/hey-guess-what-there-really-is-a-hot-hand/">Gelman</a>, <a href="https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/is-the-hot-hand-fallacy-a-fallacy/">Lipton&Regan</a>, <a href="http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2015/11/9/making-sense-of-the-hot-hand-fallacy-fallacy-part-1.html">Kahan</a>, <a href="http://www.thebigquestions.com/2015/10/07/boys-girls-and-hot-hands/">Landsburg</a>, <a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/innumeracy-the-hot-hands-debate-continues/">Novella</a>, <a href="http://nadaesgratis.es/pedro-rey-biel/existen-las-rachas-ba-lon-ces-to-y-otras-cosas">Rey Biel</a>), newspapers (<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hot-hand-debate-gets-flipped-on-its-head-1443465711">Wall Street Journal</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/sunday-review/gamblers-scientists-and-the-mysterious-hot-hand.html">The New York</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/upshot/trust-your-eyes-a-hot-streak-is-not-a-myth.html">Times</a>) and <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/11/solution_to_coin_flip_paradox_when_to_bet_heads_or_tails.html">online</a> magazines (<a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/10/hot_hands_in_basketball_are_real_new_analysis_shows.html">Slate</a> and <a href="http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/08/how-researchers-discovered-the-basketball-hot-hand.html">NYMag</a>).</p>
<h2>The hot hand rises again</h2>
<p>With this counterintuitive new finding in mind, let’s now go back to the GVT data. GVT divided shots into those that followed streaks of three (or more) makes, and streaks of three (or more) misses, and compared field goal percentages across these categories. Because of the surprising bias we discovered, their finding of only a negligibly higher field goal percentage for shots following a streak of makes (three percentage points), was, if you do the calculation, actually 11 percentage points higher than one would expect from a coin flip! </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/162475/original/image-20170325-12157-ziljmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Not just an illusion, those hands can be hot.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/abstract-illustration-basketball-player-flames-31296391">Athlete image via www.shutterstock.com.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An 11 percentage point relative boost in shooting when on a hit-streak is not negligible. In fact, it is roughly equal to the difference in field goal percentage between the <a href="http://www.espn.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/3-points">average and the very best 3-point shooter in the NBA</a>. Thus, in contrast with what was originally found, GVT’s data reveal a substantial, and statistically significant, hot hand effect. </p>
<p>Importantly, this evidence in support of hot hand shooting is not unique. Indeed, in recent research we’ve found that this effect <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2611987">replicates in the NBA’s Three Point contest</a>, as well in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2450479">other controlled studies</a>. Evidence from other researchers using <a href="https://doi.org/10.2202/1559-0410.1198">free throw</a> and <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=2481494">game</a> data corroborates this. Further, there’s a good chance the hot hand is <a href="http://andrewgelman.com/2015/07/09/hey-guess-what-there-really-is-a-hot-hand/#comment-227641">more substantial than we estimate</a> due to another subtle <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2012.676467">statistical issue called “measurement error,”</a> which we discuss in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2627354">appendix of our paper</a>.</p>
<p>Thus, surprisingly, these recent discoveries show that the practitioners were actually right all along. It’s OK to believe in the hot hand. While perhaps you shouldn’t get <a href="http://www.csnne.com/boston-celtics/paul-millsaps-hot-hand-took-atlanta-hawks-out-of-their-game-against-boston-celtics">too carried away</a>, you can believe in the <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201511/superfluidity-and-the-hot-hand-are-synonymous">magic and mystery</a> of momentum <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBGsb7xyPNI">in basketball</a> and <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/bob-dylan-and-the-hot-hand">life in general</a>, while still maintaining your <a href="http://andrewgelman.com/2015/07/09/hey-guess-what-there-really-is-a-hot-hand/">intellectual respectability</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joshua Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Sanjurjo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For 30 years, sports fans have been told to forget about streaks because the ‘hot hand’ is a fallacy. But a reanalysis says not so fast: Statistics show players really are in the zone sometimes.Joshua Miller, Affiliate at IGIER and Assistant Professor of Decision Sciences, Bocconi UniversityAdam Sanjurjo, Assistant Professor of Economics, Universidad de AlicanteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.