Simon Mitchell
Well-Known Member
Hi Ben,
I don't think Andrew is around these boards, so I think it is appropriate for someone who knows him and is familiar with his data to clarify some of the issues. There are several points:
First, Andrew has never presented a "statistical analysis" in the true sense of the expression.
Second, he is scrupulous about pointing out the limitations of his data when he presents them.
Third, his efforts to bring clarity to this issue have resulted in the ONLY relevant "data" that exists (with all its weaknesses acknowledged). Prior to Andrew's initiative all we had was wholly unsubstantiated but often repeated speculation that had resulted in it becoming an article of faith that mCCRs are safer.
Fourth, what Andrew has done is simply to compare what we know of the prevalence of the two types of units in the diving community with the proportion of deaths known to have occurred on each respective type. The prevalence in the community data comes largely from several surveys that have polled divers about what sort of unit they use (I think one of them was on RBW and I cannot remember how many respondents there were). Obviously if 80% of the deaths occur on eCCRs and 80% of rebreather divers use eCCRs then the apparently high mortality on eCCRs is not surprising. This is essentially what he found: that prevalence in the community and representation in mortality data were closely matched. It is nothing more than that, and Matthieu (above) says it is not enough to sway his opinion - fair enough. But these are the only relevant figures we have to inform the debate. It is therefore difficult to support an argument that one sort of rebreather is safer than another... based on what we currently know.
Of course, the poop slide could be appended to the end of this post too!
Simon M
Ben Field said:I am surprised anyone with "Dr" as a title is niave enough to think there are enough divers and deaths on CCR to perform statistical analysis!
I don't think Andrew is around these boards, so I think it is appropriate for someone who knows him and is familiar with his data to clarify some of the issues. There are several points:
First, Andrew has never presented a "statistical analysis" in the true sense of the expression.
Second, he is scrupulous about pointing out the limitations of his data when he presents them.
Third, his efforts to bring clarity to this issue have resulted in the ONLY relevant "data" that exists (with all its weaknesses acknowledged). Prior to Andrew's initiative all we had was wholly unsubstantiated but often repeated speculation that had resulted in it becoming an article of faith that mCCRs are safer.
Fourth, what Andrew has done is simply to compare what we know of the prevalence of the two types of units in the diving community with the proportion of deaths known to have occurred on each respective type. The prevalence in the community data comes largely from several surveys that have polled divers about what sort of unit they use (I think one of them was on RBW and I cannot remember how many respondents there were). Obviously if 80% of the deaths occur on eCCRs and 80% of rebreather divers use eCCRs then the apparently high mortality on eCCRs is not surprising. This is essentially what he found: that prevalence in the community and representation in mortality data were closely matched. It is nothing more than that, and Matthieu (above) says it is not enough to sway his opinion - fair enough. But these are the only relevant figures we have to inform the debate. It is therefore difficult to support an argument that one sort of rebreather is safer than another... based on what we currently know.
Of course, the poop slide could be appended to the end of this post too!
Simon M
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