Hi, Win!

I was reading your posting and I wonder if we're getting caught up (and 
students are getting caught up) in a semantic problem.  What is a 
"standard"?  Is it a rule?  Nope.  If it was a rule, it would apply all 
the time or at least in explicit conditions.  There are certain rules 
that we live with.  "Be in to work by 8 Mon-Fri unless you have an 
approved vacation day that day or you have called in sick," "Drive 55mph 
(roughly 100 kph for all those people that haven't bowed down to the 
imperium) on U.S. Highways unless the posted speed limit is higher", etc.

The "standards" that we deal with as divers are a compendium of 
statistics and guidelines.  If I have a one gram weight and you have a 
one gram weight, will they both be the same?  Theoretically yes but 
actually, no.  However, the deviations from "one gram-ness" are of little 
or no consequence (statistically).

Breathing ppO2 at high pressures is toxic and will induce convulsions on 
a human.  Breathe 4atm ppO2 for an hour and it's pretty guaranteed that 
you'll have convulsions at some point.  However, the "standard" is a 
_guideline_ that says, "breathing a ppO2 of 'X' atm means that you have a 
statistically significant chance of _not_ having drastic adverse 
physiological effects".  That's for a "standard" human being.  
non-standard human being (I'm not standard, and I don't think there is a 
"standard" human being) might tolerate 2.0 atm or they might convulse at 
1.2 or even lower.

"Standards" are only true if all things are "standard".  Humans aren't.  
Perhaps, instead of calling them "standards", we should call them 
"guidelines".  Maybe "interesting and significant statistics".

Unfortunately, as Richard Pyle (there, Mr. Wackenberth [sorry for the 
name mangling - don't have your name handy at the moment], I didn't 
confuse the two Richards this time ::grin::) wants us to do, we'd have to 
teach people to think, to make judgements, to make evaluations.  Which 
many aren't going to do.  Some of those are going to do things anyway.  
Thus we create things called "standards" that we can ask them to memorize 
and then hope and pray that they'll live through the experience because 
they now have a better chance than they would if we simply refused to 
talk to them.

I don't like it, but as a former paramedic and water rescue team member, 
I've pulled a LOT of people out of the water (I probably have more body 
counts than you, George, but I'm not silly enough to go into a cave 
after'em ::grin::.  Come to think of it, I'm not silly enough to go into 
a cave for any reason ::grin::).  If I could have saved just _one_ of 
them by watering down the course slightly and, instead of asking them to 
think, asked them to memorize, I'd have been _far_ ahead of the game.

Of course the counter-argument is that by watering down the course, one 
is encouraging more people into the water and, therefor, increasing the 
total number of accidents (fatal and non).  It's this dilemma that I've 
not yet managed to solve.

Back to the original issue of standards.  Standards are good.  They give 
us a baseline so that we _know_ when we're getting into statistically 
risky things - when we're deviating from what we _think_ is known to 
areas where we _know_ we don't _know_.  However, Standars are not rules 
and they are not natural law.  Yet.


        -- Kevin --
        kevink@ap*.co*

It is hard to disagree with a pro-survival decision,
     It is even harder to engage in prolonged arguments
          with someone who consistently makes anti-survival decisions.

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