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What's wrong with chasing numbers?
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<blockquote data-quote="Herefords.US" data-source="post: 771151" data-attributes="member: 3972"><p>What's wrong with chasing numbers?</p><p></p><p>Simple!</p><p></p><p>Because "chasing numbers", particularly to the novices and those so-called breeders who are catering to that type business, becomes a race toward the maximum rather than the optimum.</p><p></p><p>The "if more is better" then EVEN MORE MUST BE EVEN BETTER mentality has resulted in creating a bunch of cattle that are out of balance with their natural environment(or in the the case of BW, "if less is better" then EVEN LESS MUST BE EVEN BETTER!).</p><p></p><p>EPDs are particularly attractive to novices because it provides them with something they are familiar with, numbers, to use for comparison. They aren't nearly as comfortable when they actually have to look at the cattle, their actual performance records and/or actual measurements, then evaluate and compare them. </p><p></p><p>Evaluation based on phenotype is an applied science that requires a lot of study and is still somewhat subjective. Some people have honed a greater skill at it than others. Some people have a natural talent for it while others must work many times as hard to learn it. </p><p></p><p>It's just a whole LOT easier to compare sets of numbers - even if their accuracy is low and they don't mean very much.</p><p></p><p>George</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Herefords.US, post: 771151, member: 3972"] What's wrong with chasing numbers? Simple! Because "chasing numbers", particularly to the novices and those so-called breeders who are catering to that type business, becomes a race toward the maximum rather than the optimum. The "if more is better" then EVEN MORE MUST BE EVEN BETTER mentality has resulted in creating a bunch of cattle that are out of balance with their natural environment(or in the the case of BW, "if less is better" then EVEN LESS MUST BE EVEN BETTER!). EPDs are particularly attractive to novices because it provides them with something they are familiar with, numbers, to use for comparison. They aren't nearly as comfortable when they actually have to look at the cattle, their actual performance records and/or actual measurements, then evaluate and compare them. Evaluation based on phenotype is an applied science that requires a lot of study and is still somewhat subjective. Some people have honed a greater skill at it than others. Some people have a natural talent for it while others must work many times as hard to learn it. It's just a whole LOT easier to compare sets of numbers - even if their accuracy is low and they don't mean very much. George [/QUOTE]
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