No evidence that parachutes really prevents gravity related accidents.

[Zimme83]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/

Scientist have found that there have been no studies conducted to determine that a parachute is more efficient than placebo in preventing gravity related accidents.

CONCLUSIONS:

As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. 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.

[Mar]

Parachutes are a major cause of global warming.

Air travelers should be banned from using them.

This is fact because some scientist somewhere in the world has said this at least one time in his/her life.

[Mar]

Oh, and Zack rules.

[Wmaker]

It was a funny read and made a good point too (though, it can be a bit of a slippery slide if applied everywhere but as the paper said, common sense should be applied in conjunction).

Nice to see that a government site like that doesn't take itself too seriously.

I especially liked the notes:

"Contributors: GCSS had the original idea. JPP tried to talk him out of it. JPP did the first literature search but GCSS lost it. GCSS drafted the manuscript but JPP deleted all the best jokes. GCSS is the guarantor, and JPP says it serves him right."