Perhaps you do, but you've given no indication of it.
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DFC5343:The cert means nada...it all in the water.
cornfed:I don't think you understood anything I just said. Let me try again...
>>To state a point without being an ass will tend to make your point more readable and less likely to be dismissed.
I too was talking about the nature of certifications and we both agree that a certification is only an indication of the lower bound. Someone can far exceed that minimum but the certification doesn't tell you that and it certainly is not a necessary condition. My claim is that for a certification to be meaningful the minimum it indicates should be sufficiently high to guarantee some level of proficiency. The problem is the bar seems way too low in this case to be a reliable indication of anything.
>>You are talking in circles, to borrow your arrogant tone. To summarize what you are saying - 'certification bar too low thus certification is meaningless'. OK....I totally agree the bar is set too low, but there is a bar and thus it has some minimum meaning. This ties in with the next paragraph about required courses.....
For example, here is one path to MSD:
- OW (4 dives)
- AOW (5 dives)
- Rescue (5 dives)
- Five specialty classes...
- Equipment Specialist (no dives)
- Fish Identification (2 dives)
- Underwater Naturalist (2 dives)
- Underwater Photographer (2 dives)
- Coral Reef Conservation (no dive)
- 30 dives outside class
>>The MSD application reads 'Non-diving certifications are not applicable to the 5 required speciality courses'. You can't be a MSD based on the courses you described above. All applicable specialities have to be diving and that ALONE means this person will have AT LEAST been exposed to several environments. The specialities I chose were Dry Suit, Night, Deep, Wreck, and Nitrox.
After this you qualify (as far as I can tell from reading PADI'S website) for the MSD rating because you have satisfied the minimum requirements. What have those specialty course done for you? Two of them don't require dives and one of them (reef conservation) doesn't even require you to be a certified diver! How is that making you a better diver? While they may be interesting course, are equipment specialist and UW photography helping you become a better diver? How are you any better off than if you'd stopped after rescue and logged 36 more dives (for a total of 50)? Shouldn't achieving some level of certification be an indication of your skill level? You seem to think so, Yet you claim that, "The PADI MSD can be as useful or as useless as any other certification depending on the diver" (emphasis added). Well which is more meaningful, the card or the diver? And if it's the diver what good is the certification?
>>This is redundant - dive experience means more than cert cards - cert cards represent a minimum bar - there has not been a single post by anyone that has said otherwise - move on.
Going back to your doctor analogy, you can compare doctors to each other and say that guy the finished last isn't as good as whomever finished first. However, the bar is sufficiently high that the minimum requirements for the title of 'doctor' to still mean something. If we cast the MSD issue in to the medical realm we would have everyone from people with first aid training to brain surgeons called 'doctors' and the term wouldn't be very meaningful.
>>You're adding context to my previous example - my point with the doctor analogy was cert alone does not make someone good. Obviously relative to the discipline at hand....
I'm sure there are lots of very skilled divers out there that have earned a MSD rating. However, the bar it set to low for the certification to be meaningful by itself.
"Most of the adults I see that have a "master" certification really should not be diving at all."jhelmuth:from your earlier post...
Sorry I missed the part about where "it doesn't matter"
matt_unique:cornfed:I don't think you understood anything I just said. Let me try again...
To state a point without being an ass will tend to make your point more readable and less likely to be dismissed.
You are talking in circles, to borrow your arrogant tone.
To summarize what you are saying - 'certification bar too low thus certification is meaningless'. OK....I totally agree the bar is set too low, but there is a bar and thus it has some minimum meaning.
I think I was clear that this was my interpretation from PADI's website.matt_unique:The MSD application reads 'Non-diving certifications are not applicable to the 5 required speciality courses'. You can't be a MSD based on the courses you described above.cornfed:For example, here is one path to MSD:
* OW (4 dives)
* AOW (5 dives)
* Rescue (5 dives)
* Five specialty classes...
o Equipment Specialist (no dives)
o Fish Identification (2 dives)
o Underwater Naturalist (2 dives)
o Underwater Photographer (2 dives)
o Coral Reef Conservation (no dive)
* 30 dives outside class
matt_unique:>>This is redundant - dive experience means more than cert cards - cert cards represent a minimum bar - there has not been a single post by anyone that has said otherwise - move on.cornfed:After this you qualify (as far as I can tell from reading PADI'S website) for the MSD rating because you have satisfied the minimum requirements. What have those specialty course done for you? Two of them don't require dives and one of them (reef conservation) doesn't even require you to be a certified diver! How is that making you a better diver? While they may be interesting course, are equipment specialist and UW photography helping you become a better diver? How are you any better off than if you'd stopped after rescue and logged 36 more dives (for a total of 50)? Shouldn't achieving some level of certification be an indication of your skill level? You seem to think so, Yet you claim that, "The PADI MSD can be as useful or as useless as any other certification depending on the diver" (emphasis added). Well which is more meaningful, the card or the diver? And if it's the diver what good is the certification?
matt_unique:cornfed:Going back to your doctor analogy, you can compare doctors to each other and say that guy the finished last isn't as good as whomever finished first. However, the bar is sufficiently high that the minimum requirements for the title of 'doctor' to still mean something. If we cast the MSD issue in to the medical realm we would have everyone from people with first aid training to brain surgeons called 'doctors' and the term wouldn't be very meaningful.
>>You're adding context to my previous example - my point with the doctor analogy was cert alone does not make someone good. Obviously relative to the discipline at hand....
However, I believe a certification should have merit by itself.matt_unique:>>I agree 100%.cornfed:I'm sure there are lots of very skilled divers out there that have earned a MSD rating. However, the bar it set to low for the certification to be meaningful by itself.
Is it O.K. if I blatently steal this and hand it out to some of the divers bouncing off the bottom wearing entire catalogs of gear?gedunk:the worth of any cert is best evaluated personally,and individually in the water. No two people with the same cert, will ever have the same skill level in every skill.
cornfed:However, I believe a certification should have merit by itself.
mech_diver:'Nuff said about this nonsense.