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The biggest casualty in the pandemic so far has been public faith in news media, governmental institutions and "experts". The thought is really, really frighte

The biggest casualty in the pandemic so far has been public faith in news media, governmental institutions and "experts". The thought is really, really frightening how many people had a very undeniable experience of their local Tinfoil-Hat being proven right not once, but 3-5 times so far. From the WHO recommending to sustain Airtravel to China and it's refusal to declare the outbreak a pandemic, to renowned Virologists stating that facemask usage is ineffective until the evidence was too overwhelming. From Governments in the span of 3 weeks changing their tone from overconfidence to desperation. Statistics released by research groups that could very easily be disproven by anyone with first semester statistics knowledge... If anything this will change the world and it is scary to me how much this loss of trust will cost us. I know a couple of well educated and rational people that are already stating they will not take a vaccine once it's available, simply because they "can't" trust any data and study done on it. "Where are the adults?"

rumanator 6y ago
> to renowned Virologists stating that facemask usage is ineffective until the evidence was too overwhelming. Source? I saw nothing of that. What I did saw was health officials dissuading the public from buying gloves and masks because they were in very short supply and the spike in demand was forcing frontline workers, those who actually need gloves and masks, to macguyver theirselves alternative protective equipment. At most, I've only saw health officials state that mask usage among the general public was not an assurance of immunity because wearing a mask provided a false sense of protection, and could even be counterproductive because it motivated users to keep touching their faces.
- Roritharr 6y ago
  Here is a tweet from Germany's most renowned Virologist who actually developed the Sars-cov-2 Test, oversimplifying the Lancet Paper on Masks to the point where he concludes the opposite of the contents of the paper he links to: https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1241659738569539584 https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1241659738569539584 The discussion raged for weeks, before "masks for as many as possible, healthcare workers prioritized" became the public concensus. This is just an example, but there are so many more that it becomes hard to show no sympathy to people who have "fact fatigue".
- jariel 6y ago
  "> to renowned Virologists stating that facemask usage is ineffective until the evidence was too overwhelming. Source? " The 'source' is the authorities of most of the Western World. Dr. Tam, the National Medical Honcho in Canada made the declaration that 'masks were not going to help' ... until the WHO and other nations changed their mind and she followed suit. Masks were officially not recommended, then recommended but not required, and then required in some places.
watwut 6y ago
There might be big difference in which media you read and which experts you listened to. I read imperial college reports and they raised my trust to experts. It was clear which assumptions they use and whether they aim for worst case, best case or what. I also seen experts debunk bad articles quickly, even through those got less traction and popularity. > I know a couple of well educated and rational people that are already stating they will not take a vaccine once it's available, simply because they "can't" trust any data and study done on it. I mean, are they as rational as and as educated as they consider themselves to be? > "Where are the adults?" All around. Plenty of them everywhere. They dont always get to win and they often loose political faith against intentionally bad actors. And intentionally bad actors are bigger threat right now then mistaken experts or immature people.
- Roritharr 6y ago
  > "There might be big difference in which media you read and which experts you listened to. I read..." This really doesn't matter for my point, there clearly are sources of truth out there, some more perfect than others, but they are not in effect shaping the discourse nor the policies. They are just voices in a crowd of equally credentialed institutions that have been caught doing very bad science, which is hurting public perception in general. It's even worse, the scientific institutions that are doing the best work often keep quiet because they don't have the clear evidence to support certain claims yet, leaving the field open to the ones marching forward with dubious relations. The Stanford Study being the best example. My point is that the loss of public trust will be very damaging.
  - watwut 6y ago
    > but they are not in effect shaping the discourse nor the policies But again, shaping where? In America not at all, as a matter of politics. In Germany, they seem to be listened to and shaping both discourse and policies. In UK, experts put up the fight and ended up being listened to. Not the first moment, but politics turned around. > They are just voices in a crowd of equally credentialed institutions that have been caught doing very bad science But that is the thing ... this does not seem to me to be the case. There was plenty of good scientific discussion. It more of seems to be the case that you had to cherry-pick studies other experts criticized a lot and then ignore said criticism. This was absolutely done for political reason, but politicians doing it were already known for lying. The fans of these politicians are unmovable and their trust wont change either way. Their primary motivation seems to be destruction of government institutions anyway, it is not like that would changed. > The Stanford Study being the best example. The Stanford Study was being criticized from get go and the conflict of interests was pointed out quick. This particular study is good example of study being promoted for political reasons. And the people doing that should not be trusted. If the "one outlier in Stanford says it, therefore it is true" idea dies, that is a good thing for science. Institutional pedestals are bad for science, but knee jerk eagerness to promote outlier instead of consensus is even worst. You should absolutely mistrust those who were involved in apparently bad studies. I just dont understand how outlier non-peer reviewed studies that got criticized quickly imply that you cant trust anything and anyone ever. That is the irrational part and uneducated part. It implies not understanding how science work, how peer review works, how common disagreements are in science, how scientific consensus emerges, why it is important and how it fails. It implies uncritically trusting feel good outliers studies before they were peer reviewed and before multiple other studies were confirming results.

rumanator 6y ago

> to renowned Virologists stating that facemask usage is ineffective until the evidence was too overwhelming. Source? I saw nothing of that. What I did saw was health officials dissuading the public from buying gloves and masks because they were in very short supply and the spike in demand was forcing frontline workers, those who actually need gloves and masks, to macguyver theirselves alternative protective equipment. At most, I've only saw health officials state that mask usage among the general public was not an assurance of immunity because wearing a mask provided a false sense of protection, and could even be counterproductive because it motivated users to keep touching their faces.

Roritharr 6y ago
Here is a tweet from Germany's most renowned Virologist who actually developed the Sars-cov-2 Test, oversimplifying the Lancet Paper on Masks to the point where he concludes the opposite of the contents of the paper he links to: https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1241659738569539584 https://twitter.com/c_drosten/status/1241659738569539584 The discussion raged for weeks, before "masks for as many as possible, healthcare workers prioritized" became the public concensus. This is just an example, but there are so many more that it becomes hard to show no sympathy to people who have "fact fatigue".
jariel 6y ago
"> to renowned Virologists stating that facemask usage is ineffective until the evidence was too overwhelming. Source? " The 'source' is the authorities of most of the Western World. Dr. Tam, the National Medical Honcho in Canada made the declaration that 'masks were not going to help' ... until the WHO and other nations changed their mind and she followed suit. Masks were officially not recommended, then recommended but not required, and then required in some places.

watwut 6y ago

There might be big difference in which media you read and which experts you listened to. I read imperial college reports and they raised my trust to experts. It was clear which assumptions they use and whether they aim for worst case, best case or what. I also seen experts debunk bad articles quickly, even through those got less traction and popularity. > I know a couple of well educated and rational people that are already stating they will not take a vaccine once it's available, simply because they "can't" trust any data and study done on it. I mean, are they as rational as and as educated as they consider themselves to be? > "Where are the adults?" All around. Plenty of them everywhere. They dont always get to win and they often loose political faith against intentionally bad actors. And intentionally bad actors are bigger threat right now then mistaken experts or immature people.

Roritharr 6y ago
> "There might be big difference in which media you read and which experts you listened to. I read..." This really doesn't matter for my point, there clearly are sources of truth out there, some more perfect than others, but they are not in effect shaping the discourse nor the policies. They are just voices in a crowd of equally credentialed institutions that have been caught doing very bad science, which is hurting public perception in general. It's even worse, the scientific institutions that are doing the best work often keep quiet because they don't have the clear evidence to support certain claims yet, leaving the field open to the ones marching forward with dubious relations. The Stanford Study being the best example. My point is that the loss of public trust will be very damaging.
- watwut 6y ago
  > but they are not in effect shaping the discourse nor the policies But again, shaping where? In America not at all, as a matter of politics. In Germany, they seem to be listened to and shaping both discourse and policies. In UK, experts put up the fight and ended up being listened to. Not the first moment, but politics turned around. > They are just voices in a crowd of equally credentialed institutions that have been caught doing very bad science But that is the thing ... this does not seem to me to be the case. There was plenty of good scientific discussion. It more of seems to be the case that you had to cherry-pick studies other experts criticized a lot and then ignore said criticism. This was absolutely done for political reason, but politicians doing it were already known for lying. The fans of these politicians are unmovable and their trust wont change either way. Their primary motivation seems to be destruction of government institutions anyway, it is not like that would changed. > The Stanford Study being the best example. The Stanford Study was being criticized from get go and the conflict of interests was pointed out quick. This particular study is good example of study being promoted for political reasons. And the people doing that should not be trusted. If the "one outlier in Stanford says it, therefore it is true" idea dies, that is a good thing for science. Institutional pedestals are bad for science, but knee jerk eagerness to promote outlier instead of consensus is even worst. You should absolutely mistrust those who were involved in apparently bad studies. I just dont understand how outlier non-peer reviewed studies that got criticized quickly imply that you cant trust anything and anyone ever. That is the irrational part and uneducated part. It implies not understanding how science work, how peer review works, how common disagreements are in science, how scientific consensus emerges, why it is important and how it fails. It implies uncritically trusting feel good outliers studies before they were peer reviewed and before multiple other studies were confirming results.