I had a discussion about this paper with someone who has access to the original. They tested 6 knots, and ranked them. They didn't find the "6 best knots". The order of the knots are:

1. Zeppelin
2. Alpine butterfly
3. Reef
4. Granny
5. Thief
6. Grief (aka "Whatnot" in Ashley)

I would love to see comparative evaluations of a bowline, double bowline, and a rewoven figure eight, all knots employed in tieing in to a climbing rope.The bowline used to be the standard, but the figure eight is now considered superior.

In sixty years of technical climbing and rescue work, i have never had need to tie an alpine butterfly. How does it stack up against a figure eight?

The main reason for the Alpine Butterfly as I understand, is it's ease to untie after loading. Say some sort of crevasse rescue/raising situation where there is tremendous load on the knot. I haven't seen anyone use it for a tie in near the bitter end tho. Only for a mid point knot to form a loop.

I haven't used them, prefer a double bowline since it is also easy to untie and spreads the wear on two loops of rope. The double bowline is common when building a Banshee belay anchor too.

The double bowline, AKA bowline on a bight, is said to have the same quality. I have used the knot in rigging up the hoist for a mammoth skull fossil, which we later weighed at 1100 pounds. The knot untied easily, after being loaded for about thirty minutes.

I have used a sheep shank to create an easily untied after loading pair of loops for the trucker's hitch. You just have to run the moving line thru both loops to prevent the knot from rolling undone.

Never seen anyone else do this.

Wonder what are the strength/failure potential?

Even used it for a Tyrollean traverse, (with backup overhead line), over a small creek.