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Keeping up with Changing Thinking in Scuba
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I heard someone say (can't remember who) that if Jacques Cousteau just appeared today that he would be very proud that we were still using scuba and also very sad that we had not advanced past scuba.
On the other hand, I wonder what he'd say about the fact that people across the planet can now visit the underwater world he could previously only show them on film, after just two days of training, for the price of the difference between a basic hotel room and a good one, and with no more risk than driving in their home town?
It was a good invention. Simple, reliable, easy to use. It's not that we haven't got anything more advanced, there's rebreather diving, saturation diving, atmospheric suits, remotely operated vehicles. But a tank, two regs and a bladder just work and are more than enough for most people.
I think that, if rebreathers were safer and "idiot proof", then a lot of people would switch to them (cost of the unit notwithstanding). Until that day however basic scuba gear remains an affordable relatively easy way to get underwater.
Cowfish Aesthetic
Contributor
electric_diver
Contributor
Sometimes it is best not to and just do what works for you.
For example, there was a time when the collective scuba knowledge held that diving nitrox was extremely dangerous. If you were to research current scuba thinking in the early 1990s you would think that nitrox was bad. You would have gotten bad information.
Scuba is a sport where egos, idiots and blowhards tend to obscure the facts when it comes to best practices.
Is that true? I wasn't a diver in the early 1990s, so all I know is that there were a lot of voices calling it "voodoo gas" and such. Uninformed, like today's rabble on social media. But did those voices really reflect "scuba knowledge"? Were the people calling it voodoo gas familiar with the then-current research on Nitrox? Or were they just burying their heads in the sand? I think one or more posts upthread pointed out the difference between paying attention to the noise on social media and actually "keeping up with changing thinking in scuba" by reading primary or secondary research sources, attending conferences, etc.
Although I wasn't a diver at the time I suspect this was the case - a lot of people not bothering to read or understand the research that was available. A lot easier to shout "voodoo gas" than to follow the latest thinking especially back 20+ years ago.
Hello Chris,
As the person who often represents the scientific community on forums I sometimes present my own work and sometimes discuss that of others. This inevitably results in me being conflated into the author of some of the work I discuss. I just want to be clear that David Doolette published (and deserves the credit for) the helium penalty work. It does become quite confusing because David and I often publish together. For example, at TD USA he will be presenting a review on in-water recompression that we are publishing together, but the helium penalty work is his, and dates back to his days in Adelaide. There is a panel discussion at TD USA which we are both participating in where you could raise the helium penalty thing.
Simon M
Hello,
The initial push back on nitrox is fascinating, and maybe not what you think. I was in the thick of it as a relatively junior diving physician and it was an uncomfortable place. I say that because a large amount of the opposition was led by the medical / scientific community itself rather than lay people not bothering to read research. At that time many prominent members of the diving medical community were either not divers or infrequent recreational scuba air divers, and I shamefacedly have to admit there was an attitude along the lines of `how dare these amateurs adopt practices that only we can understand`. This resulted in a lot of pontification against nitrox from members of the diving medicine community.
The bit that I think is fascinating is how 20 years later we have situation in which technical divers have insinuated themselves into the front ranks of the diving medicine and science communities, and so the agenda is completely reversed. There are still medical conservatives who think technical diving is too risky, but they have surrendered the platform of feeling able to claim that they understand the relevant issues better than technical divers and the members of that community who are physicians and scientists. The whole dynamic has changed, and members of our community itself are now driving targeted research to answer questions of high practical relevance to our practice (like the topic that should no longer be mentioned on this thread!, the pre-breathe study, the various CO2 scrubbing studies, and some of the stuff we and others will be presenting at TD USA).
In terms of how to keep up with knowledge, I should acknowledge people like the Thorntons (TD USA), Leigh Bishop and Roz Lunn (Eurotek), Sue Crowe (Oztek), and Tomasz Stachura (Baltic Tech), and others who put on these shows and place a strong emphasis on presentations by diving medicine and physiology experts. These shows are an excellent source of up to date information. TD USA is next week!
Simon M
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