Your examples of parachutes and masks are not examples of useful truths that don’t meet standards of scientific evidence. They are examples of useful truths tha

Your examples of parachutes and masks are not examples of useful truths that don’t meet standards of scientific evidence. They are examples of useful truths that have not been tested through double blind randomized control experiments. But they both have scientific evidence behind them, and by any reasonable definition of meeting standards of scientific evidence, they do. The efficacy of parachutes can be derived from first principles. We know parachutes slow descent. And we know the risk of injury and death caused by force of impact. We can calculate how much a parachute slows descent snd therefore reduces force of impact snd prevents death. The benefits of wearing masks in reducing the spread of COVID and serious disease through COVID can similarly be derived from first principles but more importantly, there are many comparative population studies that meet the standard of scientific evidence.