Hawk Eye Debate
In July 2008, Public Understanding of Science published a paper that examined the potential of technologies like Hawk-Eye (used to track the position of the ball in tennis and cricket) to contribute to the public understanding of core scientific topics like uncertainty and measurement error. This page provides links to the paper plus some of the debate that it provoked.
THE HAWK-EYE PAPER
Download the full text of the paper as a pdf file from the journal website (requires subscription or a one-off payment) or download the full text as an MS Word file
Other Information
Links to some of the news coverage prompted by the paper is available from google news
Further information about the Hawk-Eye system is available from the Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd website.
Reference
Collins, Harry and Evans, Robert (2008) 'You cannot be serious! Public understanding of technology with special reference to "Hawk-Eye"', Public Understanding of Science, Vol. 17, No. 3 (July), pp. 283-308.
DOI: 10.1177/0963662508093370
Abstract: Public understanding of science, though it approaches the specialist knowledge of experts only in rare circumstances, can be enhanced more broadly in respect of the processes of science and technology. The public understanding of measurement errors and confidence intervals could be enhanced if "sports decision aids," such as the Hawk-Eye system, were to present their results in a different way. There is a danger that Hawk-Eye as used could inadvertently cause naïve viewers to overestimate the ability of technological devices to resolve disagreement among humans because measurement errors are not made salient. For example, virtual reconstructions can easily be taken to show "exactly what really happened." Suggestions are made for how confidence levels might be measured and represented and "health warnings" attached to reconstructions. A general principle for the use of sports decision aids is put forward. A set of open questions about Hawk-Eye is presented which, if answered, could help inform discussions of its use and accuracy.
Key Words: sports decision aids; Hawk-Eye; public understanding of technology; simulations; cricket; tennis.