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Lazy dismissal of scientific work is something of its own epidemic on HN these days. "Ah, but this study doesn't address this laundry list of things I just made

Lazy dismissal of scientific work is something of its own epidemic on HN these days. "Ah, but this study doesn't address this laundry list of things I just made up, and I haven't bothered to look at other sources, and I probably haven't bothered to even read this study, actually." It's especially common on COVID-related studies amongst the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers on the site, but I have been seeing the same kind of lazy dismissal on lots of other posts as well. It's effectively an evolution of the Gish gallop. I find it both dreary and frustrating, personally, and it's not terribly surprising that people like the poster above call people out on it.

PpEY4fu85hkQpn 5y ago
I agree. Every HN post is full of "well actually" non-experts who love dismissing the work of experts with a few sentences of layman talk.
dang 5y ago
It's endemic on HN because it's endemic on the internet because it's endemic to humans. There's no "lately" about this. The question is, what do we do about it? Posting even worse comments, like the GP, is obviously not helping.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  I like to believe that HN has at least been partially successful in holding itself to a higher standard than the internet at large, through a combination of community guidelines, overall community belief in the guidelines, and thoughtful moderation. You could, of course, say the same thing about personal attacks: They're endemic on the internet and to humanity, but we've mainly kept them out of HN using the above measures. Lazy dismissal is often the top comment on any given post, COVID or not. It's harmful to discussion and I would argue antithetical to the hacker spirit: If we only allow perfect airtight products/proofs, we miss out on discovery and exploration. Perhaps some guideline to avoid lazy dismissals (or something along those lines) would go a long way.
  - ghshephard 5y ago
    I think my comment: I keep looking, and I find it kind of incredible that we're two years into a pandemic, and except for one study in Bangladesh with masks (that wasn't really that clear) - there is nothing to say that any of these masks are working. Was what was seen as a lazy dismissal. I should have spent more time expanding on why I didn't think it was really clear, but the point I was really trying to get at - is that there has been a lack of experimentation, trials, research - despite the millions of lives lost and many billions of dollars spent (Trillions?) - and I was really hoping someone would respond with a pointer to such a RCT that we could all read. Unfortunately the takeaway wasn't that we should spending more time to demonstrate that masks work, but that I was dismissing that they did. The absolute opposite of what I was attempting to do. The failure in communication is clearly mine, and I'll try and be a little more expansive in the future. For the record, what I really should have written was, "To date, there have been no studies that have reassured me that I could go indoors into a crowd of infected, unmasked people, confident that as long as I kept my well-fit 3M 8210 N95 mask on, that I ran < 0.1% chance of being infected by Covid. The Bangladesh Study that showed 8.6% of people in the control villages reporting Covid symptoms and 7.6% in the experimental villages, did not provide me that kind of reassurance, thought I think it provided statistically significant results that masks as a general public health NPI are effective at reducing transmission of the Coronaviruses under study at the time." Of course - Omicron essentially reset all expectations for transmissibility.
    - sdenton4 5y ago
      Yeah, that's exactly where I read to, which registered as more anti-masker nonsense. Thanks for the explanation(s), and sorry for the noise.
ghshephard 5y ago
But - I was super excited by the Bangladesh study, and spent the better part of a half hour or so trying to see if I could tease out some clear evidence that masks work. I'm insanely pro-mask, and was way ahead of the curve back in february 2020, when a lot of the mainstream was suggesting masks don't work (If that's the case, then why were we trying to reserve them for first responders in hospitals?) - and encouraged everyone I know to wear them. I've spent hours reading the Japanese Meta-Analyses of mask usage in influenza scenarios, looking for differences in Coronavirus and Influenza Virus behavior. I have never, not once in 18+ months gone indoors where other people are, without wearing an N95 Mask (after I was able to source them ~ June 2020). I don't think it's an exaggeration that a lot of the last two years of my life have been dedicated to both encouraging (strongly) everyone I know to wear a high-quality, well-tested N95 from a well-known trusted source, as well as scouring the internet for solid research on the effectiveness of masks. I'm not lazily dismissing that Bangladesh study - I just came away from it not being particularly encouraged that it provided evidence that the masks / methodology presented there would shut down a pandemic by preventing transmission. I'm eagerly and enthusiastically looking for evidence to confirm my bias that masks work.

PpEY4fu85hkQpn 5y ago

I agree. Every HN post is full of "well actually" non-experts who love dismissing the work of experts with a few sentences of layman talk.

dang 5y ago

It's endemic on HN because it's endemic on the internet because it's endemic to humans. There's no "lately" about this. The question is, what do we do about it? Posting even worse comments, like the GP, is obviously not helping.

sdenton4 5y ago
I like to believe that HN has at least been partially successful in holding itself to a higher standard than the internet at large, through a combination of community guidelines, overall community belief in the guidelines, and thoughtful moderation. You could, of course, say the same thing about personal attacks: They're endemic on the internet and to humanity, but we've mainly kept them out of HN using the above measures. Lazy dismissal is often the top comment on any given post, COVID or not. It's harmful to discussion and I would argue antithetical to the hacker spirit: If we only allow perfect airtight products/proofs, we miss out on discovery and exploration. Perhaps some guideline to avoid lazy dismissals (or something along those lines) would go a long way.
- ghshephard 5y ago
  I think my comment: I keep looking, and I find it kind of incredible that we're two years into a pandemic, and except for one study in Bangladesh with masks (that wasn't really that clear) - there is nothing to say that any of these masks are working. Was what was seen as a lazy dismissal. I should have spent more time expanding on why I didn't think it was really clear, but the point I was really trying to get at - is that there has been a lack of experimentation, trials, research - despite the millions of lives lost and many billions of dollars spent (Trillions?) - and I was really hoping someone would respond with a pointer to such a RCT that we could all read. Unfortunately the takeaway wasn't that we should spending more time to demonstrate that masks work, but that I was dismissing that they did. The absolute opposite of what I was attempting to do. The failure in communication is clearly mine, and I'll try and be a little more expansive in the future. For the record, what I really should have written was, "To date, there have been no studies that have reassured me that I could go indoors into a crowd of infected, unmasked people, confident that as long as I kept my well-fit 3M 8210 N95 mask on, that I ran < 0.1% chance of being infected by Covid. The Bangladesh Study that showed 8.6% of people in the control villages reporting Covid symptoms and 7.6% in the experimental villages, did not provide me that kind of reassurance, thought I think it provided statistically significant results that masks as a general public health NPI are effective at reducing transmission of the Coronaviruses under study at the time." Of course - Omicron essentially reset all expectations for transmissibility.
  - sdenton4 5y ago
    Yeah, that's exactly where I read to, which registered as more anti-masker nonsense. Thanks for the explanation(s), and sorry for the noise.

ghshephard 5y ago

But - I was super excited by the Bangladesh study, and spent the better part of a half hour or so trying to see if I could tease out some clear evidence that masks work. I'm insanely pro-mask, and was way ahead of the curve back in february 2020, when a lot of the mainstream was suggesting masks don't work (If that's the case, then why were we trying to reserve them for first responders in hospitals?) - and encouraged everyone I know to wear them. I've spent hours reading the Japanese Meta-Analyses of mask usage in influenza scenarios, looking for differences in Coronavirus and Influenza Virus behavior. I have never, not once in 18+ months gone indoors where other people are, without wearing an N95 Mask (after I was able to source them ~ June 2020). I don't think it's an exaggeration that a lot of the last two years of my life have been dedicated to both encouraging (strongly) everyone I know to wear a high-quality, well-tested N95 from a well-known trusted source, as well as scouring the internet for solid research on the effectiveness of masks. I'm not lazily dismissing that Bangladesh study - I just came away from it not being particularly encouraged that it provided evidence that the masks / methodology presented there would shut down a pandemic by preventing transmission. I'm eagerly and enthusiastically looking for evidence to confirm my bias that masks work.