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Study "Proves" Parachutes Ineffective

posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 23 2018, @03:55PM   
from the Science-Interpretation-Guide dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/12/22/679083038/researchers-show-parachutes-dont-work-but-there-s-a-catch

A study has been done, and the surprising result is that parachutes are no more effective than a backpack in preventing injuries when jumping out of an airplane.

It's "common sense" that parachutes work, so it has been a neglected field of science. This surprising and counter-intuitive result is an excellent example of the importance of doing science.

... or maybe it's a perfect example of how top-line study headlines can be mis-representative, especially when portrayed by the mass-media, and how understanding study scope and methodology is important.

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Original Submission

• This can be applied to many other studies (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:55PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 23 2018, @11:55PM (#777954)

  You see studies of how vitamins, for example, don't provide health benefits to many people. I'm not saying vitamins are good or bad but the consensus is that they shouldn't be needed, you are supposed to get your vitamins from your food. There are some people that may be deficient in some vitamin and so they take multivitamins to ensure they aren't. Sure those people might be in the minority, and sure it would probably be better if they ate the right foods instead, but for some it might just be easier to take a multivitamin. Or maybe there are some people that require more of a specific vitamin because their bodies don't absorb it as thoroughly. But people are lazy, they don't want to go through the hassle of figuring out what they may lack and don't lack so they just take a multivitamin to ensure they aren't missing anything. They think of it as a health insurance policy in case they are missing anything.

  Another problem with these studies is that the people that take multivitamins are probably more health conscience than those that don't and so they are probably those that need them least. They know that multivitamins are no substitute for a good diet. Trying to study how multivitamins affect them is not very useful because they are the least affected. Trying to compare them to those that don't take multivitamins is probably not very useful because if those that take them are healthier it's hard to determine if their healthier status is due to the multivitamins or due to the fact that they are more health conscience.