3 ms·

Taleb has been going pretty hard all week on how that study doesn't demonstrate what certain people really, really want it to demonstrate: https://fooledbyrando

• jjgreen 6y ago
  I await his peer-reviewed response with interest.
  • ahelwer 6y ago
    He isn't responding to the claims in the actual paper (which are quite weak - they explicitly say the paper doesn't show masks are ineffective) but rather the crowd of charlatans who have hoisted this paper upon their shoulders to push anti-mask bullshit.
    • timr 6y ago
      "they explicitly say the paper doesn't show masks are ineffective" No paper can ever show that. You cannot prove a negative (except in extremely bounded cases, of which the mask proposition is not one). This is why statistical studies attempt to provide evidence supporting an alternative hypothesis. If you cannot accept the alternative hypothesis, you must accept the null. Studies do not attempt to disprove the alternative hypothesis, and accept it otherwise. This study attempted to find statistically convincing evidence that masks provided personal protection, and failed to do so. Does it mean that they have proven that masks don't work? Of course not. There are many reasons why they might have failed to detect a real effect. But it does imply that whatever effect is being hypothesized is smaller than the power of the study they used to detect it.