http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/advanced-scuba-discussions/441629-diver-training-how-much-enough-24.html#post6591407Speaking of true to form... you have yet to bring any evidence to support your claim that the sky is falling. You feel it's other people's duty to prove that it is not.
Good old Pete, true to form: I've never claimed that the sky was falling, I've merely suggested that there are things that the industry has forgotten that were superior in terms of quality training, for example, getting students up off the bottom.
Perhaps, you can show a demonstrable increase in accident rates for us to bolster your claim that current training standards are inadequate.
I've never cited an accident rate as evidence of inadequate training standards. I have often observed that the beaches are not littered with bodies. What I usually cite as evidence of a problem is the astronomical drop out rates, of divers and of instructors.
As far as browbeating, you and DCBC got rid of Peter by doing just this. This is more like the pot calling the microwave black.
Peter left because I pointed out his "distortion by oversimplification approach," a typical lawyer trap, that in court or deposition is usually followed by an insistence on a "yes or no" answer, an approach that could not be taken here. Peter is great guy and quite bright, but it is (just like my brother who is also a lawyer) analogous to the fable of the Frog and the Scorpion.
As for argumentum per deluvium, I wish I could say that I coined the phrase but it sure fits here. You might even see it as argumentum per delugium. You simply drown out the opposition with voluminous allusions and half truths that you can neither document or prove and then simply challenge your opponents to prove otherwise.
Actually I can not find it in either form, except in your usage, so you get to claim it. I had thought that you were onto some interesting and were referring to an argument based on the idea that "it worked better in the past" (as in "antediluvian"), but now that I find it just your same old idea of voluminous allusions and half truths being a "flood," well, that's even more amusing. How you can try to tar me with that brush is truly bizarre since an "allusion" is an indirect mention and I tend to be rather direct, and I scrupulously attempt to avoid half-truths. Would that you did the same, or at least provided examples of my "allusions" and/or "half-truths."
The real issue here, and I have pointed this out before, is that neither you or DCBC like modular learning. You can't tolerate someone treating Scuba as a part time hobby that only requires a modicum of training to enjoy. It's whole hog, or no hog for you and that's just not reasonable nor is it marketable. If it was, you would have your own agency making millions of dollars as the best way to get scads of divers to embrace Scuba. Your system works well for pedantic types who are overly impressed with themselves even to the point of making a mountain out of a mole hill in the name of science. Common folk don't have time for those shenanigans and just want to dive. If their desire to dive deeper/longer increases, they simply take the requisite classes to further their education. Training today is safe enough, by ANY agency.
It is not that either of us have a problem with modular learning, it is a fine way to accomplish two possible goals: keeping programs that are conducted separately in sync; and conducting programs at a higher level than would otherwise be possible while using less qualified staff. I just have little use for either "advantage."
I neither reject nor welcome someone treating Scuba as a part time hobby that only requires a modicum of training to enjoy. I just feel that the modular programs that are out there lie to the general public about the dangers of diving in general and of exposure to hyperbaric conditions specifically, so again, you're setting up strawmen that have nothing to do with anyone's actual thoughts, opinions, actions or conclusions.