Slow tissue on gas from stops

[Dr Simon Mitchell]

So with all these studies being done, what is the optimal profile? a recommended GF factor with some honesty as not everything is know or clearly understood? All these studies are published yet none of them gives a optimal profile, only recommendations/suggestions. To me this is guesswork.

ajduplessis

Seriously?

Science is an iterative process. You don't get all the answers to all the questions in the first few studies. It is perfectly true and I have said it many times, the estimates of how far to back away from deep stops (eg GF settings) is certainly guesswork, but the fact that we should back away most certainly is not.

The irony this line of reasoning from a bubble model apostle is that your quickest path to an exemplar of guesswork is to open your bubble model on your computer.

Simon M

 

[ajduplessis]

Seriously?

Science is an iterative process. You don't get all the answers to all the questions in the first few studies. It is perfectly true and I have said it many times, the estimates of how far to back away from deep stops (eg GF settings) is certainly guesswork, but the fact that we should back away most certainly is not.

The irony this line of reasoning from a bubble model apostle is that your quickest path to an exemplar of guesswork is to open your bubble model on your computer.

Simon M

Seriously? You dont have all the answers, yet diismiss other models as non-optimal, now thats irony!! Your’s approach is no different to the “guesswork” I do with the bubble model on my laptop.

I am in agreement with you that an optimal profile setting to reduce DCS risk (eg GF setting) is guesswork. I am also in agreement that excessive deepstops is not optimal and that we should certainly back away from stops like these. There is however a massive difference between 1-2min stops versus 20min...

 

[The Chairman]

Being honest about what you dont know while emphasizing that current working models are counterproductive sounds like guesswork to me, not science.

In my unlearned opinion, almost all deco theory is a SWAG: a Scientific Wild Assed Guess. Kudos to peeps like @Dr Simon Mitchell who try to reduce the amount of guesswork through tedious albeit methodical research. But still, we are making a bunch of assumptions about how similar our physiologies are to the norm and I personally like to hedge my bets. This is not a workplace for me where "efficiency" is paramount. I simply want to reduce my exposure to risk and that means adding time to shallow stops and ascending slowly from 60 ft up and painfully slowly from 20ft. Call it "NetDoc's Fudge Factor" or NDFF if you will. Hell, some of my best dives happened during the safety/deco stop. I'm already in the water where I want to be, so I make sure that I take time to stop and smell the deco (gas allowing).

One day, I'll understand gradient factors to the point that I'll feel happy in departing from the defaults on my Shearwater. Most who try to 'dive-splain' it to me obviously don't have a sufficient enough grasp to help me fully understand. Until then, I'm fine taking the default and adding in NetDoc's Fudge Factor (NDFF) to keep me from being bent. I'm finishing up on 49 years in July of diving without being bent, and I really, really want to make to 50. Then to 51. Then to 52 ad nausea.

 

[Storker]

You dont have all the answers, yet diismiss other models as non-optimal, now thats irony!!

If someone claims to have "all the answers", I'd be extremely careful about listening to them. Particularly if the topic is science, because science will never, ever have "all the answers". The Final Definitive Answer (tm) is frequently found in religion, never in science.

Science is always wrong, but luckily it gets less wrong with time. And in most fields today, the amount of wrong is in the order of tolerable to negligible (at least for the majority of cases).

The Relativity of Wrong by Isaac Asimov

But to actually answer your argument instead of continuing on one of my favorite tangents, it's quite scientifically acceptable to dismiss obviously erroneous models while still not having all the answers. We still don't have all the answers about the universe, but we definitely have enough answers to dismiss the notion that the Earth is flat and that everything else in the universe revolves around her.

 

[Dr Simon Mitchell]

Pretty much the only evidence based choice available to you in technical decompression diving right now is to back away from deep stops as proposed by bubble models. Most divers appear able to get their heads around the implications of this knowledge. You, of course, are free to do whatever you like.

Simon M

 

[doctormike]

science will never, ever have "all the answers"...Science is always wrong, but luckily it gets less wrong with time.

Perfectly stated.

We are utterly dependent on some version of science for everything we have beyond rooting around in the forest for grubs and berries. Yet the easier life gets, the quicker we are to abandon the scientific method with willful ignorance.

 

[ajduplessis]

Pretty much the only evidence based choice available to you in technical decompression diving right now is to back away from deep stops as proposed by bubble models. Most divers appear able to get their heads around the implications of this knowledge. You, of course, are free to do whatever you like.

Simon M[/

How can you call a so called evidence based decompression model the only choice when its foundation is based on Disneyland profiles no diver will ever perform?

Most divers here did not bother reading the studies, so yes it appears they have their heads around the implications of this knowledge.

Sheep will also follow a leader of a cliff. This is only a metaphor so please dont get your knickers in a knot, I am already struggling to respond all the SB staff members response in this thread.

 

[Cowfish Aesthetic]

How can you call a so called evidence based decompression model the only choice when its foundation is based on Disneyland profiles no diver will ever perform?

He doesn't refer to a decompression model as being the right or only choice. His point is that all available evidence suggests you avoid models that propose deep stops. Feel free to do so while simultaneously avoiding Disneyland profiles.

 

[Storker]

Perfectly stated.

We are utterly dependent on some version of science for everything we have beyond rooting around in the forest for grubs and berries. Yet the easier life gets, the quicker we are to abandon the scientific method with willful ignorance.

Which brings me to another of my favorite pet peeves. I have a colleague who walks with a limp and has a humpback due to polio when he was a boy. My parents never had to worry about their kids getting polio, because we were fed those pink drops on tiny pieces of crackers during primary school. OTOH, I still remember my mother checking up on us if we were developing a stiff neck when we had the measles, not being able to completely hide her fears. Me, I've never had to worry about neither since my kids were born after the measles vaccine had been introduced. These days, there are parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. They can't have had the same experiences I've had. It's rather ironic that the success of modern medical science has lead to this.

</hijack>

 

[dmaziuk]

I'm finishing up on 49 years in July of diving without being bent, and I really, really want to make to 50. Then to 51. Then to 52 ad nausea.

By principle of mathematical induction, if you already made it to 47, and to 47 +1, then you will make it to 47 + 1 + 1 and to + 1 ad nauseam. HTH.