Mailing List Archive

Mailing List: techdiver

Message Display

Rich,

On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, Richard Pyle wrote:

> No, there are several anecdotes.  As a scientist, I know how easy it is
> for people to naively think that all of our understaning of the world
> around us comes only from structured, controlled experimentation.
> Anecdote plays a much larger role in our understanding of things than most
> folks realize.

Multiple anecdotes are referred to as "uncontrolled data" Legitimate
for use by all including life scientists/humans ;-)

"Plagiarize, plagiarize, let no one else's work evade your eyes, but
please, always be sure to call it - Research" - Tom Lehrer

> In diving, there has been little or no controlled
> experimentation on the topic of deep stops -- there is only anecdote.  But
> that anecdote comes from the likes of commercial diving harvesters, who do
> something on the order of several hundred decompression dives PER YEAR
> (tens of thousands over a career), and George, and me, and J-P Imbert,
> and all the others.  Now, do we ignore this anecdote and continue racing
> to our first rewquired stops simply because nobody has come up with the
> money to do the tests in a chamber?

These aren't anecdotes; they amount to experience. Also the "risk" of
adding the deep stops (2 mins every 30 fsw until the first stop "required"
by the tables/model) extends the dive only a small amount beyond the
original plan without deep stops, as you, Chris and others have shown with
Abyss, Decom etc. It's intuitive, even if no one thought of it before you.

But, sharks are ubiquitous. Forgoing the use of a scooter has
consequences. George says he will do a 24,000 m swim with an 80 tank and
no gauge. But does he really want to *have* to do it that way every time?
Would he give up scootering through caves if there was a charcharadon
round a few of the tight bits? I doubt it. So if we accept that sharks are
curious and that a scooter makes vibrations/emf/yummy
yellow/wugga-wugga/whatever, how *much* of an attractant is it? Talk to
the Brits about riding their bikes down country roads. Every farm you pass
has a mongrel with flashing teeth whose job it is to take lumps out of
passing tourists. Does that mean we never go bicycling again?

After the anecdote comes the "collective experience". You've given it us
for deep stops; how about sharks 'n scooters? Or is this an overblown
shark myth that keeps us superstitious rather than tech?

> Would I be cautions about using scooters in areas with potential shark
> problems?  Hell yes!

Well, I agree I'll pass on roaring through the crowd of hammerheads in the
Cocos doing 3 mph on my Tekna. But how about Monterey/Kona/etc?

-pH

"The problem about the gene pool is that there is no life-guard" - Anon

Navigate by Author: [Previous] [Next] [Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject: [Previous] [Next] [Subject Search Index]

[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]

[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]