Posted by Eins on February 05, 2001 at 22:50:24:
In Reply to: Re: Cause and effect posted by John Walker on February 05, 2001 at 21:51:12:
John,
We all know that a number of divers who died recently were diving solo. What we do not know is why exactly they died. What went wrong. Their death was not caused by diving solo. Solo diving is not lethal (or fatal). They died because something went wrong. Something that may or may not have been resolved by a buddy. I don't know for sure, you don't know for sure, nobody knows for sure. And that is why I disagree when people keep repeating that they died because they dived solo.
There's the bull.
All these poor dead souls dived with scuba gear. You might as well say that there is a correlation between their death and scuba gear. But you don't. Because it would be bull. And because there are millions of other divers on scuba who don't die. Just like there are thousands of other solo divers who don't die.
I hear the voices asking why so many solo deaths and so few "buddy" deaths. Good question. Maybe buddies prevent deaths. Maybe solo divers are making more mistakes or take more risk. Maybe there are other reasons. Whatever you say or I say is an assumption. We don't know. And as long as we don't know but claim to own the truth, we're talking bull. That's my only point.
Maybe I should have said 'opinion' instead of bull. I don't mean to call names, I want to point out the uncertainty on which statements are based here.
Eins