No evidence that parachutes prevent injuries when jumping out of planes (2003)

https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459

by lord_sudo • 5 years ago

78 30 5 years ago

bmj.com

mikequinlan• 5 years ago

Published 18 December 2003

nannal• 5 years ago

Yes changes in parachute and plane technology may have rendered this research obsolete.

SethTro• 5 years ago

They did a follow up randomized experiment where people jumped out of planes (at 2ft) with and without parachutes.

https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2019/02/breakthrough-resea...

jraph2• 5 years ago

This is the first time I hear about this issue.

We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.

I wasn't expecting this. My reaction to what I understood as "Need solid studies? Nobody's preventing you to go kill yourselves to make your point, be our guests, the world will be better without you anyway!" was: what? this can't be serious.

This is indeed not serious as your link outlines:

Obviously the first parachute study was tongue-in-cheek, but the authors’ point was important: The absence of randomized controlled trials for a certain medical intervention does not mean that the intervention cannot be safe and effective. And an RCT often would be unethical, as I noted in a past blog on the “tyranny of the RCT.” Sometimes, well-designed observational studies must suffice.

This is well done.

Okay, I have my shot of serious fun for the day, let's go back to work.

3np• 5 years ago

https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

ukj• 5 years ago

The experiment design is ready and waiting! The participants are all lined up.

Just have to bribe the ethics board!

wishiwasaninja• 5 years ago

Ethical approval Not required

I'd say it's ready to roll.

cblconfederate• 5 years ago

This "review" is meant to highlight the absurdity of needing randomized control studies for things that are observationally obvious.

There is however a follow up RCT study that used actual jumpers to prove that parachutes do help https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094

fbn79• 5 years ago

For ages was "observationally obvious" that life can came out from inanimated materia without https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation

foxhop• 5 years ago

Read about the unified field, it seems all materia extrudes from this field. Maybe not so far fetched after all?

Life being consciousness which helps the unified field extrude into intelligent forms and continues to unfold.

hannob• 5 years ago

This may sound like fun, but there's some evidence that the parachute analogy has been massively overused: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29343497/

Like the idea here is that there are some interventions that are so obvious that you don't need rigorous evidence to show they work. However as it turns out people use that analogy to justify interventions that did later turn out to not work.

refurb2• 5 years ago

I’m too lazy to search for it, but there was an organization that collected the top “stop doing these things in medicine because they don’t work”. The polled the major medical societies to put them together. Ranges from emergency medicine to gynecology.

I think most people would be shocked to learn: 1) how many “obvious” interventions don’t work and 2) how common they are in today’s medical practice.

throwaway9348763• 5 years ago

And 3, how many people are utterly convinced they DO work. Like with homeopathy.

shabble• 5 years ago

Cochrane Reviews? https://www.cochranelibrary.com/about/about-cochrane-reviews

praptak• 5 years ago

Article: "Data on parachutes found not to be conclusive"

Serious media: "Serious doubts on parachutes"

Tabloid portals: "Click to see the shocking truth on parachutes!"

Social media: "Parachute industry conspiracy! No-parachute jumping party at 11!"

jraph2• 5 years ago

It's more like "not found to be conclusive [yet]" for "Article", but the rest can remain unchanged.

amatic• 5 years ago

The Phrase "No Evidence" Is A Red Flag For Bad Science Communication

arketyp• 5 years ago

Masks work but so does the (non-)impression of a shielded face. Those aspects are luxuries maybe, but at some point, even granted the utilitarian outlook, it weights in on the Well-being calculus too. I feel sad for kids especially.

dkmn• 5 years ago

^this

Hilarious.

One of the things that had most annoyed me in medicine since 1995,a slavish dedication to what I've come to call "evidence based nihilism". And a lot of the people who are most rigid do not treat patients but get promoted out of useful work.

The space of actual practice is far more complex and some applied science is actually called for.

What's worse, this kind of sanctimonious stringency (large industry/govt funded placebo DB RCT etc) is selectively applied to only certain practices, never to received wisdom or pet projects.

No evidence that parachutes prevent injuries when jumping out of planes (2003)

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