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Researchers Show Parachutes Don't Work, But There's A Catch (npr.org)

Reader Beeftopia shares a report: Research published in a major medical journal concludes that a parachute is no more effective than an empty backpack at protecting you from harm if you have to jump from an aircraft. But before you leap to any rash conclusions, you had better hear the whole story. The gold standard for medical research is a study that randomly assigns volunteers to try an intervention or to go without one and be part of a control group. For some reason, nobody has ever done a randomized controlled trial of parachutes. In fact, medical researchers often use the parachute example when they argue they don't need to do a study because they're so sure they already know something works. Cardiologist Robert Yeh, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and attending physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, got a wicked idea one day. He and his colleagues would actually attempt the parachute study to make a few choice points about the potential pitfalls of research shortcuts.

They started by talking to their seatmates on airliners. [...] In all, 23 people agreed to be randomly given either a backpack or a parachute and then to jump from a biplane on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts or from a helicopter in Michigan. Relying on two locations and only two kinds of aircraft gave the researchers quite a skewed sample. But this sort of problem crops up frequently in studies, which was part of the point Yeh and his team were trying to make. Still, photos taken during the experiment show the volunteers were only too happy to take part. The drop in the study was about 2 feet total, because the biplane and helicopter were parked. Nobody suffered any injuries. Surprise, surprise. So it's technically true that parachutes offered no better protection for these jumpers than the backpacks.

185 comments

  1. This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

    1. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was going to make the same comment but you beat me to it.

    2. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I hope no one spent any research money on this stupid crap. If so, there should be real consequences.

    3. Re:This by Zocalo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And from this I can conclude that either you did not actually read it, failed to comprehend what you read, or (just possibly) really took issue with how they presented their point, despite the Christmas issue of BMJ being intentionally lighthearted.

      Hint: this has nothing to do with people jumping out of planes and everything to do with the extent that medical researchers assume things are so rather than actually demonstrate that is the case.

      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    4. Re:This by MikeDataLink · · Score: 5, Insightful

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

      Then you quite simply do not understand the point of it smarty pants.

      At 2ft the parachute provided no better protection than an empty backpack. This is a silly of course, but the point is that in medical research when shortcuts are taken they miss the point and come to a conclusion like this on something that actually DOES matter.

      It's an analogy to help the layman understand. Get with the program.

      --
      Mike @ The Geek Pub. Let's Make Stuff!
    5. Re:This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

      Haven't been on CNN yet then?

    6. Re:This by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.“

      You have no instinct for science.

    7. Re:This by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "medical researchers assume things are so rather than actually demonstrate that is the case."

      I disagree. The authors of this study went out of their way to get a null result. You don't do that in real life, because you won't get published. You might be tempted to go out of your way to get a *positive* result. The main point of the article is that medical *practitioners* (also journalists, the public, administrators) read a summary, skip the details, and make undue assumptions.

      The conclusion of the paper has a bit of an odd line:

      "When beliefs regarding the effectiveness of an intervention exist in the community, randomized trials might selectively enroll individuals with a lower perceived likelihood of benefit, thus diminishing the applicability of the results to clinical practice."

      In my experience, it's usually the opposite. Large RCTs are usually sponsored by pharma companies, and they craft inclusion criteria to give the greatest chance of finding an effect. The results are valid, in the population studied, but it's very easy for end users of the research to generalize that to "X is effective for treating Y."

    8. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "Lay people are not this moronic."

      Reporters certainly are. There was a recent story on the dietary salt that followed this exact process. Review of the literature did not find any double-blind random studies on the long term effects of lowering dietary salt on cardiac health or blood pressure. The journalists conclusion, encouraged by the researchers, was that there was no evidence that lowering salt intake will help reduce blood pressure. Apparently years of clinical observation was to be discarded for lack of statistical evidence supporting the treatment. This is exactly what is being parodied here.

    9. Re: This by jd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Frozen salmon have brain activity, according to research winning an Ignobel prize in its demonstration of poor controls and poor statistical analysis in fMRI studies.

      So, yes, null results are published and are valuable, when they show up flawed methodology.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    10. Re:This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

      Haven't been on CNN yet then?

      Says the Faux gnus reader.

    11. Re: This by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Informative

      This was done as an example to the medical community on problems with research studies and results. A teaching moment rather than an actual study with practical outcomes.

    12. Re:This by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      It's an analogy to help the layman understand.

      I am a layman, and what I understand from this experiment is that the obvious assumption (that you don't need a chute for a two foot drop) is the correct one, and that no experiment was necessary to prove it.

      This is the exact opposite of what they intended to show.

      It may be true that "obvious" assumptions can be wrong, but this experiment certainly does not show that.

    13. Re:This by novakyu · · Score: 1

      Yeah. Even dumber things happen "in science." At least these authors knew they were doing a dumb thing.

    14. Re:This by perpenso · · Score: 4, Funny

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

      It seems you don't use twitter :-)

    15. Re:This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I guess I also don't "get it."

    16. Re:This by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      And here's the dumbest fucking thing you'll watch today.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
    17. Re:This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are a fool to assume there was actually a point.

    18. Re:This by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Indeed. This whole thing is about as ingenious as https://blogs.scientificameric..., perhaps more so as it is even more obvious. It takes some actual insight and common sense to see that though. Sadly, both are rare and not correlated to intelligence and education.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    19. Re:This by NicknameUnavailable · · Score: 2

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

      The sad part is all the dumbest things you don't realize you've read, which was the point of this "study." The overwhelming majority of studies have substantial flaws with the design of the underlying experimental methodology employed, but it's much more difficult to point those out to people after reading them because people tend not to take in the experimental method, the ideas leading up to it, the underlying theories, the engineering nuances of the different components involved, and the characteristics of the samples beyond a rough approximation (if that.) This is actually the exact reason pop-science shouldn't be a thing: the overwhelming majority of people to read and even to act of research studies don't actually understand any of them, so you end up with a cult-like mentality forming around the people who control the critical pathways to publishing information to the masses, from journals through news outlets.

    20. Re: This by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      The paper you're referring to was another satirical one, illustrating how easy it is to make mistakes with fMRI analyses and get false *positive* results (dead fish respond to emotional stimuli). I'm not sure how that supports your contention that null results are routinely published.

      It's very difficult to show flawed methodology by producing a null result. It's much easier to demonstrate a false positive, as in the salmon study.

    21. Re:This by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

      I already have a backpack, but I do not have a parachute. So I'd take the parachute!

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    22. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It's not strictly lay people that this is aimed at.

      There is widely taught concept of "evidence based medicine" which was strongly popularised in the early 1990s. The perfectly laudable idea was to ensure that there was evidence underlying medical treatments, rather than anecdote.

      In principle, this would be fantastic. Each treatment option could have the evidence for efficacy, clinical effectiveness and safety reviewed, and the list pared down only to those with demonstrable evidence showing acceptability under the appropriate criteria. This was combined with methods of ranking quality of evidence - anecdote at the bottom; meta-analysis of multiple randomised, double-blinded, controlled trials at the top.

      The problem is that there are purists who repeat the "evidence based medicine" line like a mantra; but fail to recognise that many core treatments do not have good quality evidence for efficacy: in some cases, this is because efficacy is so great that it is taken for granted (e.g. morphine for pain due to major trauma); or it is because there are cost reasons or methodological reasons why robust trials may not have been performed. (e.g. proton beam therapy for childhood brain tumours - the treatment is expensive $100k+ per patient, and the expected benefit is thought to be in the very late long-term side effects - 20+ years later. Doing a prospective randomised controlled trial would be financially and practically infeasible).

      Equally, there are plenty of examples of "high quality" randomised controlled trials which suffer by examining only a specific subset of the population (often young adult, white males, and the result may not be generalisable to the population in general; or more relevant to a physician, the result may not be applicable to a particular case) is a, or have a trial protocol which is not useful for the treatment/condition under study (e.g. death is widely used as an "end-point" for cancer treatment because it is unambiguous, and major funding sources insist on the use of death as primary end-point for treatment trials - however, "low-grade" cancers progress so slowly that they are unlikely to cause death during any feasible study duration, therefore this is not a useful end-point for these particular cancers, whereas the medically relevant end-points are those based on symptoms, but which may be ignored due to perceived lack of scientific robustness)

      It is this latter group which this paper satirises in an attempt to bring attention to the fact that the quality of evidence is a more complex metric, than whether something is a "randomised controlled trial" or not. It highlights that for evidence to be useful, it has to be generalisable to a broad population, or at least highlighted with the limits to its applicability.

    23. Re: This by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair interpretation.

      But you can alao understand that parachutes won't save you from a 100 foot fall, because they don't open fast enough.

      The point is the conclusions of studies are often limited in scope but we apply the conclusions broadly.

      You can't always extrapolate your data. Ideally every individual set of parameters should be tested.

    24. Re:This by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I know exactly that kind of example, used in real life and trumpeted all over the place by corporate main stream media, backed by professionals (true scumbags of course) and paid for by certain corporations. The sugar rush saga, where a bunch of exceedingly corrupt doctors proved sugar rush does not exist and corporate media spread it around and you can fucking guess who paid for it. The missing fact, that was in the research but not mentioned by entirely corrupt corporate main stream media, the sugar consumption was part of a properly balanced diet and never exceeded recommended calorie intake, nothing fucking what so ever like a bunch of children eating every sugary thing in sight at a party and then going nuts and collapsing sometime there in after. Done on purpose, with an air of impartiality but entirely cooked up from the get go, by professionals who should have been pilloried, tarred and feathered and driven out of the community, all paid for by junk food companies. Yep they do it, all the fucking time and this little story is just an example of their example, how one single fact left out on purpose can distort the entire outcome and done on purpose.

      They should have refereed to the sugar rush fraud as a example of this kind of corruption of science.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    25. Re:This by GrumpySteen · · Score: 1

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today... except I didn't read it or even bother reading the summary. I just read the title of the summary and jumped to a conclusion.

      FTFY

    26. Re:This by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      (that you don't need a chute for a two foot drop)
      If you are a snowflake: no
      If you are a human: no
      If you are fragile champaign glass: perhaps!

      It may be true that "obvious" assumptions can be wrong, but this experiment certainly does not show that.
      This experiment shows that every experiment can be stretched to an absurd level, and if there is no meta research into it, the conclusions are wrong or misleading.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    27. Re: This by argStyopa · · Score: 1

      Except it DOESN'T.
      I fully get the point of the article, but the example is just sophomoric semantics: do parachutes make you safer jumping from airplanes? "No!" claim the "researchers" feeling they've proved something meaningful...only if they dismiss the always-implied language "airplanes....ACTUALLY FLYING IN THE AIR AT A MEANINGFUL HEIGHT AND SPEED".

      It would be as stupid as someone claiming that putting strychnine into your breakfast wouldn't kill you (because they never said you actually ATE the food!), or that Jessica Alba has never hesitated to cheerfully perform even the weirdest kinky crap I've asked her to (because I've never talked to her, much less asked her for kinky sexual favors).

      These "researchers" think they're clever, rediscovering syntactical gimmicks that were tiresome by 3rd grade.

      Their point, of course, was that what in these examples I dismiss as "commonly assumed" implications, in medical trials is critical...the details and assumptions SHOULD be both laid out explicitly and examined by those building upon/interpreting their conclusions.

      What's funny is that in their satirical experiment, those "clever scientists" themselves fail spectacularly at their own analyses.

      From tfa: "...Yeh says. "The real answer is that that trial did not show a benefit because of the types of patients who were enrolled." No, the trial didn't show a benefit because the basic experimental parameters were such that the (difference in) safety equipment chosen was inconsequential, not AT ALL because of the types of patients enrolled.

      They couldn't even analyze their joke correctly - perhaps the most breathtaking failure of that day.

      --
      -Styopa
    28. Re:This by twebb72 · · Score: 1

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

      Side effects include: chafing, heart palpitations, eye dryness, dry mouth, back sweat. Use only in well-ventilated area. Pregnant women, the elderly, and children should avoid use. Do not use this product if you have high blood pressure, heart disease, asthma, glaucoma, or difficulty with bladder function. Most serious side effects include loss of bowel control, paralysis, and death

      Dumber?

    29. Re:This by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Not necessarily.
      I think it is a good point that not all things can be safely studied and evaluated. Because of the morality of such choices.
      For example Animal Testing. Different animals react differently to drugs, there could be a safe drug that cures a deadly illness in humans, that would just kill a rodent. But we cannot start testing on humans especially if shown would kill a rodent.
      Proper science without the bonds of ethics, would jump straight to people and see what the results are. Pushing a person from an airplane without a parachute, so you have a baseline on the safety of a parachute. That way we have strict evidence.
      However following the bounds of ethics there are some things we cannot truly identify.

      This goes the same with politicians when talking about science. There "just isn't enough evidence" excuse, is often because to have enough evidence the problem would be impossible to fix.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    30. Re:This by Toad-san · · Score: 1

      Agree, totally agree. I was a bit dubious, being a career Airborne / SF Jumpmaster qualified NCO with maybe 150 jumps, maybe 10 freefall / skydiving. But to save "the drop was about two feet total" for last? Bogus.

    31. Re:This by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today.

      It seems you don't use twitter :-)

      Or Youtube on a computer.

  2. Steroids don't cause muscle growth by johnpagenola · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My favorite study along these lines was a randomized selection of men, half of whom were injected with steroids and half got no steroids. Neither group showed muscle gains during the study period. Not mentioned in the headline was that neither group lifted weights or engaged in any exercise. So in a sense the headline was true: just taking steroids doesn't give you big muscles. But the guys in my gym who took steroids got big because they were able to recuperate faster from heavier workouts.

    1. Re:Steroids don't cause muscle growth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also when the studies were first done in the 1950's the guy actually running the study was a meat head who took the actual steroids and gave him to his gym buddies. Just about everybody was getting a placebo. The actual college edumicated Scientist who got credit for the brilliant study was not a weight lifter and took the results as evidence Steroids had not affect on sports performance.

      There you have it the lay man knows more than the scientists. However Scientists are Scientists and since Science is infallible, so they never bother to question where the 'data' comes from.

      Numbers lie, and Data all lie. When someone quotes statistics to 'prove' their point, that just means they have made a lot of effort in finding the numbers that support their hypothesis. Common sense is sometimes wrong, but so is the scientific process of data collection.

    2. Re:Steroids don't cause muscle growth by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      But the guys in my gym who took steroids got big because they were able to recuperate faster from heavier workouts.
      Steroids don't work that way.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
    3. Re:Steroids don't cause muscle growth by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      That's why science depends on people being able to reproduce experiments. A single study is meaningless. It's science, not religion. If I can't reproduce your results the conclusion is you're full of shit and/or your study was flawed.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    4. Re:Steroids don't cause muscle growth by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they do. That's one of the primary reasons people trying to gain a lot of muscle mass use them. Anabolic steroids directly impact cell metabolism, allowing them to produce/use ATP more rapidly. This means they heal faster and recharge faster, allowing gym rats to work out more often and much more aggressively than they otherwise would be able to.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    5. Re:Steroids don't cause muscle growth by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      The parent said: steroids allow to recover faster from exercise. And that is plain wrong.
      ATP production has nothing to do with healing anyway ...

      allowing gym rats to work out more often and much more aggressively than they otherwise would be able to. Wrong.

      Steroids simply speed up muscle growth. There is no other effect. You can spent the same time in a gym without them, and if you train smart you have the same muscle grows, just slower. The main limiting factor is protein digesting/conversion anyway.

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  3. Then it went over your head, voter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You are so dumb, you believe you are the smart one again.

    So you are the average "voter".

  4. Doing God's work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This type of research. exposing the crack in science in practice and "science", is some of the most important research. Unfortunately, I don't think you can make the average person get it.

    1. Re: Doing God's work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Average people dont jump out of planes voluntarily no matter how close they are to the ground. And moving on from this idiotic topic

    2. Re: Doing God's work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You illustrate my point perfectly. This study isn't about parachutes. It's about how we abuse science regularly, even in academic circles, although this study isn't about that, and how the media and bad science can work in conjunction to produce, in plain language, falsehoods under the banner of science by using intentionally manipulative language which is technically correct. You can make the average person grok this study, on it's face. But, the face of the study is not the point. Making the average person really get the point and apply it through skepticism when reading about scientific results is difficult to impossible.

      So, you are asking yourself "if this study is about abuse of scientific language, why did they need the parachute study? why not just make the point by using concrete examples that already existed?" I work in computer security. Computer security researchers need to perform concrete demonstrations of their findings (new exploits, for example), because, otherwise the CEOs, COOs and PHBs of the world just say "I don't believe you." The study linked here on slashdot could be viewed as a security exploit. It's a widespread OpSec failure of the average person to critical examine critical language in the media. Why do the study? To have a 100% concrete example of just how easy it is to create a headline which is false in plain language but can be justified with specious research. It's a nice proof by construction.

    3. Re: Doing God's work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I heard something something the roof the roof the roof is on fire blah blah blah

    4. Re:Doing God's work by DCFusor · · Score: 1

      "Doing God's work" is how Lloyd Blankfein described Goldman Sachs as they accepted huge bailouts from the taxpayers they claimed they didn't even need (under oath in congress which I watched) - because AIG was bailed and paid them - they double dipped on "God's work". These days you gotta be careful you're not quoting a villian.

      --
      Why guess when you can know? Measure!
    5. Re:Doing God's work by gweihir · · Score: 1

      Some average people will get it. That is enough to make this a very worthwhile undertaking. The ingenuous thing is that getting this does not require much intelligence or education. It requires just an ability to see truth. Sadly, humans in general do not have that and high intelligence or education does not create it.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    6. Re: Doing God's work by oobayly · · Score: 1

      Ignoring the fact you missed the point of the study, you're right about people not wanting to jump out of aircraft.

      A colleague's father was an RAF fighter pilot during WWII. He received a commendation for bravery for flighing a heavily damaged aircraft back. In reality he apparently went to bail out, got his legs over the side and went "fuck that, there's no way I'm jumping", and nursed the aircraft home.

    7. Re: Doing God's work by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Are you sure about this? Just that I just joined a couple of hundred people in voluntarily jumping out of an aircraft and they seemed a pretty representative bunch, covering a wide range of ages, nationalities and wealth levels.

      Anecdotally but fully aligned to this beautifully written up study, wearing a parachute would have saved none of them from severe injury or death either.

  5. And the winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize is... by LordHighExecutioner · · Score: 2

    ....just guess.

    1. Re:And the winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize is... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

      This wasn't a serious study, it is actually an extension of an old joke.

      https://www.bmj.com/content/32...

      They are mocking people who demand double blind tests of everything and dismiss anything that isn't tested that way. Since double blind trials are impossible for many things in medicine, especially psychology and sociology, some people think they are bunk yet probably wouldn't hold parachutes to the same rigorous standard.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:And the winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize is... by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      ....just guess.

      It's a pretty big leap from that study to an IgNobel...

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    3. Re:And the winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize is... by apoc.famine · · Score: 1

      Except this analogy falls flat on its face because they could easily do a double-blind study like this. They just couldn't use humans. Everything about this study would be 100% applicable to humans if they used a dummy instead. We know this, because we understand how physics works at this scale.

      That's not true in medicine, psychology, or sociology.

      The dead fish fMRI study was far more insightful than this, because there, at least, it wasn't something that any 8 year old could test. It also didn't involve pretending to test something that we have 100% knowledge of at this point in history.

      They would have been better served to design an actual medical study which would have horrific ethical concerns if done this way. That would have at least been topical, and not just stupid.

      --
      Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
    4. Re:And the winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize is... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      That's the point, there are in fact ways of testing these ideas indirectly or by proxy, and many of them are well proven e.g. CBT. Still, every time there is a discussion about mental health on Slashdot, someone will demand proof that depression is real and that widely used therapies actually work, citing a lack of double blind testing as evidence that it's all just bunk.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    5. Re:And the winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize is... by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 1

      It's a pretty big leap from that study to an IgNobel...

      I see what you did there.

      I hope you washed your hands afterwards.

  6. Wasted my time reading the fucking headline, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    now waste your foster parents, Alexa said!

  7. Alright, let's get started. by Sigma+7 · · Score: 1

    This first test involves something the lab boys call 'repulsion gel.' You're not part of the control group, by the way. You get the gel. Last poor son of a gun got blue paint. Hahaha. All joking aside, that did happen â" broke every bone in his legs. Tragic. But informative. Or so I'm told. --Cave Johnson

    Meanwhile, the researchers didn't produce anything new, similar "research" was done in the past where researchers didn't know how strings worked in Java.

    1. Re:Alright, let's get started. by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Ah, but those previous researchers didn't know what they were doing. These parachute researchers did know, and they were intentionally pointing out flaws in many studies in a humorous way.

  8. Bullshit is bullshit. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Funny

    For some reason, nobody has ever done a randomized controlled trial of parachutes.

    It would be unethical to send people to their certain deaths when gravity has been sufficiently tested to the point where it is accepted as a physical constant.

    However, I'm sure ethicists would be willing to look the other way if all idiots complaining about a lack of controlled trial were used as the subjects of such a test.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dang! I thought I was heartless. I clearly need to improve :)

    2. Re:Bullshit is bullshit. by Sigma+7 · · Score: 1

      There's still other ways of doing tests without sending people into harm's way. Automobile crash tests have often used crash test dummies rather than live persons, and I'm sure parachute drop tests can do the same as well.

      Easiest way is to purchase a force sensor that works for impacts.

    3. Re:Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd be more than happy to use deniers and idiots as proof for scientific studies.
      I mean we already sort of do it now with anti-vaxxer idiots, well they do by denying help, but in turn they also lead to secondary infections that makes others lives harder, if not dangerous if an infection evolves.

      I wonder how we can coax Flat-Earthers in to testing some SCIENCE.

    4. Re:Bullshit is bullshit. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      It would be unethical to send people to their certain deaths when gravity has been sufficiently tested to the point where it is accepted as a physical constant.

      Gravity is just a theory man.

    5. Re:Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For some reason, nobody has ever done a randomized controlled trial of parachutes.

      However, I'm sure ethicists would be willing to look the other way if all idiots complaining about a lack of controlled trial were used as the subjects of such a test.

      I think not just ethicists but most people would prefer not to look at the resulting gore during the test.

    6. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gravity is not "a theory", stupid. Gravity is a phenomenon established by observations.

      Fucktards without an education, dumber than a fungus, who swamped the Internets, where did you crawl out from?

    7. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trumps ass.

    8. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trolling you is too easy lady.

    9. Re:Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Auto crash tests are used for standards compliance and marketing, not the science of what happens in real crashes.

      They provide no scientific evidence of what happens to a real human being in a crash much in the same way theoretical physics isn't science either.

    10. Re:Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For some reason, nobody has ever done a randomized controlled trial of parachutes.

      However, I'm sure ethicists would be willing to look the other way if all idiots complaining about a lack of controlled trial were used as the subjects of such a test.

      I think not just ethicists but most people would prefer not to look at the resulting gore during the test.

      You seen Al Gore lately?

      There ain't no parachute big enough...

      If he went to the beach, Greenpeace would show up and try to drag him back into the ocean.

    11. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by jd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why would you send people?

      Crash test dummies loaded with sensors would give you much more information.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    12. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Thank you very much dumbass. In fact they construct dummies specifically to replicate the human body so as to achieve results applicable to humans in crash tests. I guess they did not teach you that in your classes

    13. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually gravity is a theory, stupid. Maybe you need to look up "scientific theory" on wikipedia. Or perhaps Einstein was just an idiot with his theory of relativity.

    14. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Crash test dummies can be very expensive - up to a cool $1/2 million.

    15. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, gravity is not a theory.
      There exists a theory about the mechanism of gravity, that is often colloquially referred to as the Theory of Gravity. But gravity itself is not a theory.

      The same actually goes for Evolution - evolution happens, that is observable fact. The mechanism by which it happens is what there is a theory about.

    16. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's always so weird when a handful of Poes debate each other online.

    17. Re:Bullshit is bullshit. by pjt33 · · Score: 2

      You shouldn't personify gravity. It doesn't like it.

    18. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's the joke.

    19. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by jd · · Score: 1

      Cheaper than throwing people without parachutes out of a plane, and you get much more useful data.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    20. Re: Bullshit is bullshit. by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Gravity is not "a theory", stupid.

      Oh LOL. Someone doesn't know how science works and then calls someone else stupid. Did you go to school?

  9. Why are the most educated people dumb as bricks? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A little education makes someone have more potential.
    A lot of education makes someone maximize their potential.

    Too much education? You become the stupidest humans known to mankind and can't even do simple math like 2+2 and get the right answer.

    And these asshats are probably getting paid with taxpayer funds to do this.

  10. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by Zocalo · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's making a point about medical researchers making assumptions and/or cherry picking situations/test candidates that will skew results towards a preferred/anticipated outcome. The Christmas issue of BMJ is intentionally lighthearted, something that probably should have been made clearer in TFS to avoid the amount of "WHOOSH!" that's going on.

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  11. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by Quakeulf · · Score: 0

    Still just a waste of everyone's time.

  12. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by Quakeulf · · Score: 0

    You assume out your ass.

  13. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Shalom and Happy Hanukkah!

  14. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nazi faggots try to make everything about jews, deny it.

  15. Parachutes aren't needed to survive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We already know you can jump off a plane and survive. Lois Ann Frotten was parachuting back in 1962 and the parachute failed, but as any true dare devil, she wouldn't set such a minor setback kill her.

    The newspaper on the event
    Her TV appearance where she talked about it

  16. Don't work what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No opened parachutes, you will be dead, obviously.

    Bad parachutes maybe by its bad quality or low cost from their industries.

  17. Asimove had this in a story... by Grog6 · · Score: 1

    In the Rama story, a group of people jumped from a cliff into water, using their clothes as a braking mechanism.

    I've actually calculated this; and it COULD work.

    I won't be trying it unless there's no other option, but it goes like this:

    Terminal velocity in the atmosphere is ~120mph in a "Spread Eagle" orientation, about 180mph in a pike position.

    Hitting water at 180 will spatter you, but 120mph is right at the edge of what's possible; the guys that cliff dive are going close to that speed.

    Hitting the water flat is going to splatter you, so you would have to use any available clothing to reduce your speed as much as possible, and transition to a CLEAN PIKE position as you hit the water.

    --
    Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
    1. Re:Asimove had this in a story... by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 2

      It was actually just one guy. And he wasn't using his clothing to brake his descent. He was using it to stabilize his descent so that he would hit the water feet-first with his legs crossed. Also, if I recall correctly, Rama did not spin fast enough to produce a full Earth gravity at even the lowest level of the cylinder. And the plot point was that the jumper had crashed after flying down the zero-g axis of Rama to explore the top of an otherwise unscalable mesa (And, therefore, would be under even less initial acceleration owing to his hight.).

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    2. Re: Asimove had this in a story... by jd · · Score: 2

      Arthur C Clarke, not Asimov.

      And, yes, it's all about terminal velocity for a given aerodynamic configuration.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    3. Re:Asimove had this in a story... by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Informative

      120...ish. I fall closer to 130. I might be able to slow down to 120, but it takes some work on my part. The fastest speed on my digital altimeter is 205 mph, attained in a very steep dive at 9000 feet. I leveled into a track shortly after that, since opening a parachute at 205 mph would kill me just about as fast as not opening a parachute at 205 mph. Some of the kids I've seen flying in the wind tunnel fall at 70-80 mph. If you weigh less than 90 pounds and know how to fall slowly, I reckon you might be able to survive a terminal velocity fall if you land on the right surface. If you can find a surface that doesn't shatter some bones in the process, that'd actually be a fun party trick.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    4. Re:Asimove had this in a story... by Mal-2 · · Score: 1

      Also, if you can steer for the white water in the wake of a boat, you may not have to take the full brunt of hitting the water. I'm sure it would scare the shit out of the people on that boat though, as it would almost certainly appear you were attempting to land on them.

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
    5. Re:Asimove had this in a story... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

      Yeah it was 0.6g and > 1 earth atmosphere so terminal velocity was survivable.

      Terminal velocity on Earth is 200 km/h, but I do wonder about using a small drag parachute to cut your speed at impact.

  18. Well duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course they were happy, they got to go to Martha's Vinyard. First clue something's skewed in the experiment: there's a SUBTLE difference between Martha's Vinyard and Michigan...

  19. Re: jewish humour sure is weird by jd · · Score: 2

    The point is that flawed assumptions about "common sense" stuff are a major cause of flawed results.

    Indeed, it's the primary cause of irreproducible results.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  20. Repeat the experiment. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would like to repeat the experiment with the authors of the paper as my test subject.

  21. Re: And the winner of the 2019 Ig Nobel prize is.. by jd · · Score: 1

    IgNobels have been issued for this sort of work before - fish in brain scanners, anyone?

    I'd be horrified if they awarded another for what is basically repeat work.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  22. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by DCFusor · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not if it reminds people how they are constantly lied to via fancy language and assumption manipulation...
    BLS numbers on the economy? Every politician ever? Parse them carefully and many take this to high art - not actually lying but saying things in a way that you thought you heard what you wanted to hear. All marketing? Man, I tried all that aftershave, toothpaste, hair gel and treament, still didn't "get the girl"...(you're supposed to know that's a joke).

    --
    Why guess when you can know? Measure!
  23. Re: Why are the most educated people dumb as brick by jd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Then you didn't understand it. Which, in all honesty, doesn't reflect on them.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  24. Re:Why are the most educated people dumb as bricks by DCFusor · · Score: 1

    "Intellectual but Idiot" IbI - which I'd thought of it, but Nassim Taleb did.

    --
    Why guess when you can know? Measure!
  25. More Stupid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My intelligence has plummeted from reading this and the comments.

    Seriously. Fuck you.

  26. Re:Did the pilot by sabri · · Score: 1

    Push them? And did he yell Ãoebyeà on the way out?

    Somebody didn't read the summary.

    --
    I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
  27. The takeaway by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If someone doesn't inherently understand what the real takeaway from this story is, then I question their IQ, their capacity to think critically, or both.

    1. Re:The takeaway by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then you are questioning everyone on slashdot who insists Science is infallible. Sounds to me like your are a science denier, a flat earther, an anti vaxer, a christian fundamantalist, a trump supporter, a nazi, and a pedophile.

      Glad to have you in our club. Rational thought should be the foundation of a society, not an blind adherence to an infallible Science or God.

    2. Re:The takeaway by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      You really should consider a large gauge double-barrel shotgun for your trolling shotgun blasts, you can pack more memes, half-truths, strawman arguments, and other logical fallacies into one massive blast instead of having to pick-and-choose a more limited list.

    3. Re:The takeaway by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

      Also 'science being infallable' only works if you have the wisdom to look at the big picture over the long term, the scientific method may be a closed-loop negative-feedback system but it's also inherently open-ended with few if any theories being considered set in stone. You being a troll I wouldn't expect you to understand that though, especially being an Anonymous Coward.

    4. Re:The takeaway by ArchieBunker · · Score: 1

      They went to all this trouble to tell people that bad experiment controls yield bad results?

      --
      Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  28. HAHA! GOTCHA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You made an assumption that they were jumping from a dangerous height! But your assumption was wrong! We tricked you!

    1. Re: HAHA! GOTCHA! by Jfetjunky · · Score: 1

      You jest.. that's exactly what my they are trying to get people to notice.. A catchy headline, a result backs it up. All to produce a study that is clearly crafted to get the reaction and attention desired, all while being essentially crap under the surface.

  29. Is this some kind of joke? by EmagGeek · · Score: 1

    So someone paid (bet it was taxpayers) to research the efficacy of parachutes vs. backpacks in jumps from a height of two feet from a stationary object.

    WTActualF?

    1. Re:Is this some kind of joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lot's of people are missing the point here, that's for sure. Maybe the point is something about which part of a certain spectrum most slashdot readers fall?

    2. Re:Is this some kind of joke? by Cutterman · · Score: 1

      I forwarded the article to a couple of scientist friends - they though it was hilarious.

      Then I forwarded it to a few Eng.Lit./Biz.Sci acquaintances - none of then got the wry joke and one was absolutely furious.

      Americans are very literal minded and usually have difficulties with English jokes.

      Mac

    3. Re:Is this some kind of joke? by 110010001000 · · Score: 2

      Sounds like most of your "scientist" friends like living off of grants doing useless "research". The "researchers" here weren't making a joke, they were trying to prove a point. Unfortunately the point was already understood by anyone with half a brain. It sounds like you don't understand it yourself if you think it was hilarious.

    4. Re:Is this some kind of joke? by PPH · · Score: 1

      It's an extrapolation of previous jokes that have shown to be funny.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    5. Re: Is this some kind of joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately it's those with less than half a brain in power.

  30. Garbage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is the dumbest shit I've seen on /. maybe ever. You're better than this. Do better.

  31. Re: jewish humour sure is weird by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2

    The point is that flawed assumptions about "common sense" stuff are a major cause of flawed results.

    Except that the "common sense" assumption about the outcome of this experiment is exactly what actually happened.

    Nobody with "common sense" would assume a parachute would be helpful for a two foot drop.

  32. Re:Did the pilot by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

    Nope, he yelled "Get off my plane!"

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
  33. Re:Why are the most educated people dumb as bricks by Darinbob · · Score: 1

    Clearly you didn't read the article either.

  34. Supplement studies are my favorite by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My favorite study along these lines was a randomized selection of men, half of whom were injected with steroids and half got no steroids. Neither group showed muscle gains during the study period. Not mentioned in the headline was that neither group lifted weights or engaged in any exercise. So in a sense the headline was true: just taking steroids doesn't give you big muscles. But the guys in my gym who took steroids got big because they were able to recuperate faster from heavier workouts.

    My favorites are medical studies on vitamins and supplements and other related.

    For example, a 4-week study of Glucosamine/Chondroitin supplements that had no effect on joint pain of Rheumatoid Arthritis patients.

    Conclusion? G/C supplementation has no effect.

    Reality? We don't really know. 1) G/C supplementation is to make stronger and healthier joints by supplying building blocks not otherwise found in the diet, and 2) Joints have no blood vessels, so change very slowly. Typically 7 weeks or more would be needed to see an effect.

    Compare with: St. John's Wort depression studies lasting less than 4 weeks (medical depression meds sometimes take as much as 6 weeks to show an effect), Omega 3 fatty acid supplementation studies in healthy adults (instead of children/adults with behavioral issues), and so on.

    Nutrition studies are particularly useless. My favorite example is the guy making Soylent started out by asking the simplest question: what nutrients do we actually need to be healthy?

    The answer is: No one knows, the literature is a bewildering mess of confusing and contradictory results, and nutrition experts have differing views.

    (If you don't believe me, see if you can determine a) the *minimum* amount of vitamin D needed daily to prevent disease, and b) the *optimum* amount needed for best health. Bonus points if you can determine whether mega doses of Vitamin D are toxic. Supplemental bonus points if you can determine whether mega doses of Iodine are toxic.)

    1. Re:Supplement studies are my favorite by Kohath · · Score: 1

      How many points do I need to earn before I qualify for a parachute?

    2. Re:Supplement studies are my favorite by NormalVisual · · Score: 1

      Great, now they're going to have to re-run the study, taking into account the individual's diet and medications before strapping on the backpack/parachute.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
    3. Re:Supplement studies are my favorite by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I once noted that Neosporin antibiotic ointment made the claim that it caused wounds to heal faster than using nothing. I will not contest that. However, I would like to see the results of a comparison between Neosporin and plain petroleum jelly.

  35. Re: jewish humour sure is weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The common sense would be knowing this is not a reasonable way to test the effectiveness of a parachute, and then further that the researchers in this case were trolls for presenting it as if it were.

  36. Who funds this crap? by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 0

    It better not be the taxpayer. If so, heads should roll or be thrown out of an airplane with a parachute, at 66 feet.

  37. "you had better hear the whole story" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    we need protection from this word salad - "you had better hear the whole story" - why not just tell the story??? hard to even understand the story from all the word salad it's hidden in - where's my weed eater?

  38. Their point was selecting patients by raymorris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Their point was that the results of my medical study very much depend on which patients are selected for the study.

    Those who are likely to recover probably won't show much benefit from the treatment, because they were going to be okay anyway. Those who have a really bad prognosis may not show much benefit because they are past the point of no return, beyond help. In other studies, using patients who have a bad prognosis may exaggerate the benefits of the treatment by neglecting to include the fact that most people would be fine without the treatment. That is, the study might seem to indicate "the treatment doubles your chance of survival", but that's not true if the 90% of people with mild cases aren't included in the study.

    Here, they used subjects with a very mild case of "jump out airplane". The study showed that parachutes provide no benefit - but only because the study participants had a very mild degree of the problem. One could also do a study of extreme cases and discover parachutes don't work for jumping out of an SR-71 at cruise. The study would need to include participants with varying "a priori" prognosis, and probably run stats for each class - good prognosis, bad prognosis, and in between.

    1. Re:Their point was selecting patients by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 1

      Uh!? Or maybe the height of the jump was the big factor or that more to the point people only reading the summary/abstract miss important contextual détails.

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    2. Re:Their point was selecting patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a metaphor. Yes, the "height of the jump" is a big factor (and so are many other things not considered) and the point was pointing that out.

    3. Re: Their point was selecting patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The point was actually that an untested "truth" isn't always true. The assumption, that a parachute was going to be better than a backpack when jumping out of a plane, had never even actually been tested.
      The secondary point was that results from tests can be skewed by the form of the test itself.

    4. Re:Their point was selecting patients by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      jumping out of an SR-71 at cruise

      I just winced.

  39. TLDR by dohzer · · Score: 0

    TL;DR: Jump was under a metre. Thanks for making me read 90% of the article before stating that.

  40. And that is how you inform the general public by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Scientists do not only have a duty to perform good research (many do not, sadly), but also to inform the general public about the meaning of their results. This study is perfectly valid (if scientifically worthless) and nicely demonstrates that an experiment or study may not imply the things a non-expert may think it does. As such, it serves as a nice warning. Another one about as ingenious is this one here: https://blogs.scientificameric...

    I hope that this study wins an IgNoble as well. Note that the IgNoble in no way implies that the research so honored is bad. Dunning and Kruger won one for what is perhaps the most important discovery in Psychology of the last century. It just implies that something is really, really messed up. In this case it is the way _other_ studies using the same, standard methodology are interpreted and generalized by the press and other non-experts.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  41. Re:Why are the most educated people dumb as bricks by gweihir · · Score: 1

    Simple: Education does not create insight or understanding. Look at all the spelling-nazis for example. They managed to learn something, but they completely mistake the importance of it. They think form is more important than function and that never, ever is the case (except in art). What you need to be smart is intelligence, a will to use it on everything (I call that "wisdom") and, as a booster to that, education. Education by itself does absolutely nothing except to make the people that have it (but nothing else) dangerous fools except only fools.

    Now, if you refer to the study at hand, that is not the result of failed education. It is what a group of really, really smart people do with it: Demonstrate its limits. And as demonstration of the limits of the standard approach to medical studies, it does not get much more ingenious than this: It is clear to everybody, it clearly is a valid study and it is clearly utterly meaningless. As such it very nicely demonstrates that generalizing medical stidies is very, very tricky and cannot be done by non-experts (such as the press).

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  42. but... are there no nerds left here? by RhettLivingston · · Score: 2

    I mean, unless I've missed it, there doesn't seem to be any post here thinking about how to make this "true".

    Sure, the study was ridiculous and intended to make a unrelated point, but the nerds should be focusing on the fact that there have been survivors of high falls without parachutes. So the most important barrier to serious R&D has been broken - the possibility is provably there!

    In looking at many of the accounts on the web of high falls, I have to discount those that had parachutes that didn't open properly or were likely within the wreckage of an aircraft for most of the fall. Those were likely slowed down by things like the drag of a defective parachute or the body of a plane.

    The more intriguing accounts are the falls from high buildings. In most cases, they seem to have been helped by landing on something that absorbed some of the shock of landing. Several landed on roofs. A very intriguing one landed on the roof of a car after a fall of 22 stories and "walked away" with only a broken elbow.

    One can imagine that these folks likely benefited from some combination of positioning their bodies for high drag and/or maneuvers that translated vertical speed to horizontal speed that was bled off by traversing more air distance and landing in some particular way on a surface that absorbed a lot of the shock.

    So how might a compact device that could be carried at all times enhance the possibility of surviving something like this?

    A smartphone app could detect the freefall as well as that it is still on the person. If connected to cameras around the area it might be able to spot the best surface to hit. Guiding the arms and legs of the person to positions that will fly them toward that while minimizing downward airspeed would be problematic. That would seem to require either an exoskeleton (maybe a soft motor one) built into clothing or some muscle control interface like those being experimented with on paralyzed people. So that's a stretch today. As for having to find a roof or car to hit, that might be made less necessary with something like a personal explosive airbag and some means of ground proximity detection.

    It is an interesting rabbit trail that could have application in something like the construction industry, as a failsafe for climbers, military, etc.

    1. Re:but... are there no nerds left here? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      "A smartphone app could detect the freefall as well as that it is still on the person. If connected to cameras around the area it might be able to spot the best surface to hit. Guiding the arms and legs of the person to positions that will fly them toward that while minimizing downward airspeed would be problematic. That would seem to require either an exoskeleton (maybe a soft motor one) built into clothing or some muscle control interface like those being experimented with on paralyzed people. So that's a stretch today. As for having to find a roof or car to hit, that might be made less necessary with something like a personal explosive airbag and some means of ground proximity detection."

      Christ. Where is the "app" guy when you need him?

    2. Re:but... are there no nerds left here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you have sensors to detect freefall, and enough motive power in an exoskeleton to maneuver limbs to whatever aerodynamic configuration is needed to give a chance of surviving a freefall, why not deploy a wingsuit instead? It sounds a hell of a lot easier and more likely to result in survival.

    3. Re:but... are there no nerds left here? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But where's the fun in that? If that, then why not figure out a way to integrate a parachute into the clothing? It's more rewarding to try to figure out what the absolute minimum approach would be that might save some people.

    4. Re:but... are there no nerds left here? by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Do enough people fall from a great height while wearing tight fitting clothes to justify a new clothing design and the additional cost of the material needed?

      If you're that worried about it just wear ankle length skirts, then you'll have plenty of material to spread and slow your descent.

  43. In Other News by digitalmonkey2k1 · · Score: 1

    Condoms are no more effective than helmets at protecting from football injuries while eating ice cream on the sidelines.

    --
    My sausage tree didn't grow, does that make me a bad mommy?
  44. study of the study by renegade600 · · Score: 1

    it is the same with a lot of testing and reviews when published. everything you read is so bias these days so you never get the whole picture.

  45. The value of this study by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope no one spent any research money on this stupid crap. If so, there should be real consequences.

    No! They made a most valuable point about study validity. If anyone pays attention, this will be a quite valuable contribution to future studies and reconsideration of existing studies.

    A large fraction of studies in the medical (and social) science can not be replicated - studies that have determined the standard treatments. Many of these studies made or financed by the major pharmaceuticals. There is a lot of snake-oil put out by big drug, Inc.

  46. Re:Why are the most educated people dumb as bricks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Too much education? You become the stupidest humans known to mankind and can't even do simple math like 2+2 and get the right answer.

    So, how many doctorate do you have? Phoenix U or Trumpet U? At least 2 from each, right?

  47. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Good point. We clearly need more studies like this, given the quality of statistical understanding in America.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  48. That more generally too :) Worse for legal cases by raymorris · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Perhaps I would have been more accurate if I pointed out prognosis is an example of a variable readers might overlook. Obviously there can be many such factors, so any generalisation based on a specific study is fraught with peril.

    On a related tangent, I've noticed this effect in the extreme for legal cases. Most Slashdot headlines about legal cases are wrong when they say a court decided an issue, as opposed to deciding a specific case. A court decides a result from the wording of a specific law, as applied to a specific party, given their conduct in a specific case.

    For example, in consider a Masterpiece Bakeshop, the Colorado baker who wouldn't design a custom cake for a gay wedding. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor. The state of Colorado can't prosecute him for that case, the court ruled.
    People think SCOTUS ruled that it's okay to discriminate against gay people. That's not what happened.

    They did NOT rule that people can refuse to do business with gay people. They did not strike down the law. In fact, he's in court again now, for doing the same thing again. The facts of the case were:

    The baker said he'd happily sell them anything on the shelf.
    They wanted him to custom create an artwork celebrating their marriage, and he was unwilling to do that on religious grounds.
    The state board said it's okay for artists, including bakers, to refuse to create messages they don't agree with - unless the artist is a Christian. The board chair said out loud, on the record in the hearing, that he was coming after the guy for being a &$@%* Christian.

    The baker asserted that his First Amendment rights proclude the state from forcing him to make a statement celebrating gay marriage, including a statement in the form of a cake with certain decorations etc.

    The court ruled that the state CAN force people to make statements celebrating gay marriage. What they can't do is explicitly target Christians for enforcement, openly going after people because they are Christian. The state has to at least uphold the appearance that they would enforce the law against an atheist who diagreed with gay marriage.

    The point is, the generalisation people make from the case is entirely wrong.

  49. The wonders of the scientific method .... by timholman · · Score: 1

    This story reminds me of the old joke about the scientists who proudly announced that their experiments proved that dogs and cats could live underwater ... just not very long.

    1. Re:The wonders of the scientific method .... by SunTzuWarmaster · · Score: 1

      "Scientists report that scientists did studies on monkeys to see if monkeys would make good scientists. Its not all good news, though, some scientists will be out of a job... Unless, of course, they happen to be monkeys."

      (delivery is important)
      "SCIENTISTS report that SCIENTISTS did studies on MONKEYS to see if MONKEYS would make good SCIENTISTS. Its not all good news, though, some SCIENTISTS will be out of a job... Unless, of course, they happen to be MONKEYS."

  50. Missing the point by Donwulff · · Score: 1

    I'll just miss the point the other way around, and point out that they could've got usable data by using crash test dummies. And indeed, observational studies of people who fell without parachute vs. those who fell with would easily point both the expected safety benefits and the folly of running a controlled trial. This same problem exists for a lot of automotive safety issues (Not that there aren't a LOT of willing people to test not using a helmet on bike, seatbelt on car etc. but studies don't just hurl people at a wall at high speed with and without helmets and compare the results). Any medical studies are generally interrupted if the difference is so overwhelming that it would be unethical to continue, and prior observational studies would fit that bill.

  51. Dunning-Kruger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If I ever had any doubts about the Dunning-Kruger Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect ), many of the comments here have erased any lingering doubts...

    1. Re:Dunning-Kruger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This has been an enlightening and informative comment thread for sure. And this site is one of the higher IQ sites on the web.

    2. Re:Dunning-Kruger by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      was... long ago. Now it seems to be populated by bots, wannabes, and a few folks who haven't forgotten what it was.

  52. You could be more accurate about several things... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  53. The actual BMJ paper by colinwb · · Score: 2

    Since some commenters appear to have misunderstood the point of the article it's worth quoting from the BMJ paper (I recommend actually reading the entire paper and/or this BMJ blog):

    ...

    The study also has several limitations. First and most importantly, our findings might not be generalizable to the use of parachutes in aircraft traveling at a higher altitude or velocity. Consideration could be made to conduct additional randomized clinical trials in these higher risk settings. However, previous theoretical work supporting the use of parachutes could reduce the feasibility of enrolling participants in such studies.

    ...

    Finally, although all endpoints in the study were prespecified, we were unable to register the PARACHUTE trial prospectively. We attempted to register this study with the Sri Lanka Clinical Trials Registry (application number APPL/2018/040), a member of the World Health Organization’s Registry Network of the International Clinical Trials Registry Platform. After several rounds of discussion, the Registry declined to register the trial because they thought that “the research question lacks scientific validity” and “the trial data cannot be meaningful.” We appreciated their thorough review (and actually agree with their decision).

    The PARACHUTE trial satirically highlights some of the limitations of randomized controlled trials. Nevertheless, we believe that such trials remain the gold standard for the evaluation of most new treatments. The PARACHUTE trial does suggest, however, that their accurate interpretation requires more than a cursory reading of the abstract. Rather, interpretation requires a complete and critical appraisal of the study. In addition, our study highlights that studies evaluating devices that are already entrenched in clinical practice face the particularly difficult task of ensuring that patients with the greatest expected benefit from treatment are included during enrolment.

    ...

  54. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by Quakeulf · · Score: 1

    Those who need to be reminded they are being lied to, are not the kind that will understand it no matter how much you tell them. They just need another dream to follow. That is all one can do for them. Lead the horse to water etc.

  55. Wow, Two people actually read SF. by Grog6 · · Score: 1

    That's a lot these days. :D

    And no one called me out for misspelling Asimov. (You did spell it correctly above, tho.) :)

    I'd definitely give it a shot, if I were falling from a plane, gravity difference or not; you KNOW what happens without trying it, lol.

    Mythbusters broke Buster into pieces dropping him from a crane, trying the 'break the surface tension with a hammer" thing.
    But he landed pretty badly off axis, so IDK.

    --
    Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
  56. Big Pharma = fake news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Big Pharma is 99.99% a money making machine for the elite, and a vast amount of its 'profits' go to paying off politicians who make policies beneficial for Big Pharma. Meanwhile the vast majority of Mankind suffers thru lack of access to basic healthcare and decent food/water supplies.

    Take the JUNK SCIENCE of the annual flu 'vaccination'. Just how much money do you think Big Pharma makes from having the govs of the West pay for innoculationjs offered to a significant proportion of their population. Flu 'vaccinations' are a money making con on a scale unlike any other co witnessed in Human History- and the scum who benefit from this con are never going to give that up.

    Al-phas know that the 99% improvement in the Human condition was what the 'Victorian' reformers pushed for. Clean water supplies. Good nutrition for babies and developing children. Reduced polution and better working conditions. And a TINY number of early innoculations and treatments for COMMON conditions at the time.

    Everything Big Pharma pushes aims in truth at the 1% at best. Statistically insignificant. Yet you dribbling be-tas get endless propaganda on outlets like this one trying to convince you otherwise.

    Oh for sure the elites do benefit from the extremes of medical intervention- witness that horror on the US Supreme Court having her ultra-zi-ionist life extended, or the British Royal familiy all expecting near 100 years of life. But for you sucker riff-raff who buy into this big pharma nonsense, cos you like 'sciencey' stuff you cannot actually understand, your life expectancy has actually FALLEN in the West these last few years.

    A few years back, you were GUARANTEED life expectancy in the West would continue to rise over the next 100 years at least. Now you su-ckers are being told it is falling (for you, not your supreme 'mas-ters'). Keeping YOU free from long tail CJD (the 'dementia conditions you are seeing affect so many of the elderly people in your circle), Margeret Thatcher's ultimate gift to Humanity when she ended the longstanding taboo of not feeding animals to domestic herbivores and moved the 'mad cow' prion into the Human population, is just too expensive.

    And how many FAKE pseudo science 'dementia cures' have been published in the mainstream media this year. I read at least one every two days or so.

  57. Read Hitchhiker's Guide for an answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Arther Dent begins the story objecting to the council demoilishing his house, but the bloke in charge of the bulldozer is able to CORRECTLY inform Arther that the plans to do so had been long ago published and made 'available', but Dent had failed to respond in good time. Of course by 'available' the jobsworth meant the 'letter of the law' NOT the spirit. It was 100% certain that Dent would never discover the council plans in time despite their 'publication'.

    The extremist scum of the BMJ, who actively support the British gov in every war they inflict of the innocent populace of nations like Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Syria, mock you HHGTTG fashion, by 'exposing' the FAKE NEWS methods of so-called medical papers- while promoting and exploiting such dishonest medical research papers the rest of the year. This allows the BMJ to say to critics "see, we did expose the methods of our lies- so if you ever believed our lies, it was YOUR fault for ignoring the 'disclaimer'.

    The BMJ is part of the British Establishment- the same establishment just responsible for the drone psy-op used to ruin the holiday plans of hundreds of thousands of people, and lay the ground fro the BANNING of civilian ownership of drones in Britain in the near future.

    Of course 99.99% of Big Pharma medical research papers use the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) trick - the maths equiv of dividing by zero. But Big Pharma gets the govs of the West (and other govs influenced by the West) to implement profit schemes running to hundreds of billions of dollars off the back of these junk papers.

  58. A challenge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To whomever wrote that headline. Jump out of a plane with a backpack...

    1. Re:A challenge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You failed to specify at what altitude to jump. Which probably means you also failed to read TFS.

  59. Wrong target population by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A clinical trial is generally designed to test drug X in (medical) condition Y in target population Z. All three items X, Y, and Z, matter to be able to evaluate anything and draw a valid conclusion. In the example provided the target population is wrong because it was not at risk for death or injury. Therefore, there was nothing to evaluate.

    1. Re: Wrong target population by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Target population (Z) here is âoepeople jumping to the ground from 2 feetâ. So the trial demonstrated that there is no difference in risk when jumping from 2 feet with or without a parachute, which is technically correct.

  60. Who wants to be in the control group :) by Kuruk · · Score: 1

    Jumping out of a plane with an empty backpack.

  61. Dangerous study by h33t+l4x0r · · Score: 1

    I can already see some stable genius out there using this study to defund parachutes in the military

  62. First guy to talk gets to stay on my aircraft. by Mal-2 · · Score: 1

    This is why you shoot a man before throwing him out of an airplane.

    --
    How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
  63. Before reading it, I know who ran this study by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

    Let me guess: it was either psychologists or nutritionists.

  64. Re: Why are the most educated people dumb as brick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ah yes the emperor's new clothes.

  65. Re: That more generally too :) Worse for legal ca by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You almost have it correct but u have 2 errors. The court did not hold that the state could force someone to go against their sincerely held beliefs. They punted entirely on that question... wimps.

    Second mistake is that the new case isn't at all the same as the first. The second is about sending a gender change. Since you're pointing out that a case is limited to the specific case, this is a huge difference that you shouldn't claim these are the same.

    As an Athiest I can easily demonstrate how different these are. If I were the Baker I wouldn't have a problem baking a cake for a wedding if humans regardless who they are or even how many are marrying eachother.

    However it would be against my sincerely held beliefs based on science to bake a cake for a "gender change" celebration. To be 100% clear, if a Transgender man wants a cake to celebrate they believe their a woman, I'll bake that cake. You want to celebrate that you changed your gender I found it naive that cake because it is scientifically impossible to change your gender. Chromosomes and actual physical organs don't lie.

  66. No complaints by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just because you never received any complaints, it does not mean that all parachutes worked...

  67. I can't BELIEVE... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... that I read that whole stupid summary to find out what the catch was in the last line. Next time, just post it on April 1st so I can safely ignore it.

  68. pics or it didn't happen by hraponssi · · Score: 1

    and here you go:

    https://www.bmj.com/content/36...

    and finally, the most pressing question answered from the article itself:

    "Funding: There was no funding source for this study."

    So, some fun was had by many, discussion was sparked, but no (direct) taxpayer money wasted. Might even make a useful point, if anyone remembers it where relevant:

    "Conclusions Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention. However, the trial was only able to enroll participants on small stationary aircraft on the ground, suggesting cautious extrapolation to high altitude jumps. When beliefs regarding the effectiveness of an intervention exist in the community, randomized trials might selectively enroll individuals with a lower perceived likelihood of benefit, thus diminishing the applicability of the results to clinical practice."
    .

  69. There's layers to this by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

    The article was going on about how it was a counterpoint to the medical community's set of treatments for which they believe a trial is not necessary because you "wouldn't create a trial on the necessity of parachutes." A trial like that would be impossible to conduct and unethical.

    So, here they conducted one.

    It's strange because it *supports* the point that not only could you not conduct a trial on the necessity of parachutes, but you can abuse the system to create a trial where you can demonstrate the ineffectiveness of parachutes.

    This seems to say that medical researchers *should* assume things are so rather than even trust papers which demonstrate that it is *not* the case. I mean, what kind of argument can this paper be used for?:

    • "WAIT!!! Have you conducted a medical *trial* on the effectiveness of setting a broken bone?"
    • "no. Would you conduct a trial on jumping on a plane without a parachute?"
    • "Yes I would, and it demonstrated that parachutes are ineffective!"
    • "You're a moron. Set the fucking bone."

    But hey, it's not my field. Not even a layman here, just a passer-by. Seems like a funny paper, but I think it's in poor taste because of the weird anti-research conclusion.

  70. I know itâ(TM)s the holidays.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But it isnâ(TM)t April 1st and Iâ(TM)ll never get those five wasted minutes back.

  71. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by fox171171 · · Score: 1

    not actually lying but saying things in a way that you thought you heard what you wanted to hear.

    Like if I took a kg of 100% beef, and a kg of sawdust, and mixed them together and made hamburger patties, I could say my hamburgers were "Made with 100% beef".

    All marketing?

    I recently say a jug of juice that said "100% Juice", and underneath that in smaller letters "and other ingredients".

  72. Context is everything by cyberchondriac · · Score: 1

    This isn't just about scientific method or research publication; taken as a larger whole for language in general, it shows that context is king, and the half truth can be more misleading than an outright lie.
    Language is easy to manipulate.

    --

    Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
  73. To Be Misued by BrendaEM · · Score: 1

    Companies will uses the psychology experiment as an excuse to make things less safe.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
  74. Re: jewish humour sure is weird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If one were heavily invested in showing parachutes were no more effective than empty backpacks when jumping out of airplanes (for whatever reason - years of research, big grants on the line whatever), it would be possible to design a study to yield this absurd headline result.

    Whether it was done from malice, greed, or ignorance doesn't matter - it could be done, with the resulting benefits.

  75. Re:Did the pilot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please quote the relevant part of the summary that definitively answers my question. No, "the drop in the study was about 2 feet total, because the biplane and helicopter were parked" does not answer my question.

  76. Re:jewish humour sure is weird by DCFusor · · Score: 1

    Yep, you get it. Too bad we couldn't make a drinking game out of this while watching almost any media where pols or other marketers are speaking. We'd all die of alcohol poisoning. Me, I just got to the point of mostly ignoring it and being cynical, kind of knowing about the sad realities, but not especially wanting to be constantly reminded (chickenshit, I know, but damn...you gotta be able to smile a little sometimes).

    --
    Why guess when you can know? Measure!
  77. funding? by SuperDre · · Score: 1

    Did they really get funding? They should have been fired on the spot for even suggesting a test like this. Now, let's do the real test and get the plane up in the air, and let's see which one protects you better.. Any volunteers? maybe the researchers who did this 'research' as they are so confident the backpack will protect them just fine....

  78. cbd by KolesnikovaAnna · · Score: 1

    I am a big fan of medical CBD products and have recently purchased pure cbd vapors to fight stress. You know, it really helped me clear my head and relax. I will definitely sometimes take vaping for relaxation after a hard day's work.