3 ms·

> they also issued it under their own name with the same weight as their other reviews, so they must have thought enough of it to do so. Data is data. Editoria

by timr 3y ago

> they also issued it under their own name with the same weight as their other reviews, so they must have thought enough of it to do so. Data is data. Editorials are editorials. The fact that they're published on the same website doesn't change the data. If the Higgs boson was published in the same issue of Physics Letters B as another letter that claimed uncertainty of the result, would you treat them with equal weight? > and having worked with an N95 respirator in tuberculosis control settings for 17 years and never converted my TB test I mean...that's fine? Nobody is telling you what to believe or do. Most of what we do comes without evidence. But let's be slightly rigorous thinkers for a moment: there's a fairly obvious difference between a fit-tested n95 mask in a laboratory setting, where there are lots of other interventions happening at the same time (negative pressure labs, hoods, etc.), and putting on a loose surgical mask on a bus. We should be able to talk about that rationally, and not resort to superstition. > I've liked not being sick for the last three years. I haven't worn masks and I haven't gotten sick either. Other than Covid -- which I got when we were all wearing masks. "post hoc, ergo propter hoc."

classichasclass 3y ago
That's drawing an unnecessarily sharp description. To a first approximation all Cochrane pieces are editorials. They're interpreting what's actually out there. > But let's be slightly rigorous thinkers for a moment: there's a fairly obvious difference between a fit-tested n95 mask in a laboratory setting, where there are lots of other interventions happening at the same time (negative pressure labs, hoods, etc.), and putting on a loose surgical mask on a bus. We should be able to talk about that rationally, and not resort to superstition. No one's resorting to superstition. You're the one saying there's no value in an intervention that has empiric laboratory evidence to support it. The argument here is what matters at the population level. If the problem is performance, then we train people to select and use masks better, not simply say that there's no point to it at all.

by timr 3y ago

classichasclass 3y ago

That's drawing an unnecessarily sharp description. To a first approximation all Cochrane pieces are editorials. They're interpreting what's actually out there. > But let's be slightly rigorous thinkers for a moment: there's a fairly obvious difference between a fit-tested n95 mask in a laboratory setting, where there are lots of other interventions happening at the same time (negative pressure labs, hoods, etc.), and putting on a loose surgical mask on a bus. We should be able to talk about that rationally, and not resort to superstition. No one's resorting to superstition. You're the one saying there's no value in an intervention that has empiric laboratory evidence to support it. The argument here is what matters at the population level. If the problem is performance, then we train people to select and use masks better, not simply say that there's no point to it at all.