16 ms·

I understand how public can misunderstand this phrase but scientifically it is clear and justified. Sometimes “no evidence” means that we haven't found compell

by NoPie 3y ago

I understand how public can misunderstand this phrase but scientifically it is clear and justified. Sometimes “no evidence” means that we haven't found compelling evidence yet. Some people are desperate and want all the studies to be done immediately and evaluate the risk if the theory is real or not. But for scientists the desire to reach certain outcome is actually counterproductive as it can introduce bias. Slower and less passionate process can lead to better results. For example: 1) We had no evidence of covid being airborne and then we found this evidence. 2) We had no evidence that masks help and then we found no evidence. Two different theories, two different outcomes. Covid is airborne and it changes our understanding (however, we gradually realized that it is impossible to limit the spread and all the measures ultimately were useless). And that masks most likely had very little effect. The reporters could write better for lay public explaining that “no evidence” means that currently we don't have evidence but it could be found later or that “no evidence” is actually that we have a lot of evidence that is indicating in some other direction and the chance of new evidence that rejects those findings is smaller but still could happen.

darkerside 3y ago
Also scientifically justified, "Scientists investigating whether COVID is airborne". Either of those headlines leads people down a path. Also, I think the whole question here is, who decides what qualifies as "compelling" evidence?
- stevenAthompson 3y ago
  >Also, I think the whole question here is, who decides what qualifies as "compelling" evidence? Qualified experts. Any other answer eventually turns into political gibbering and social media nonsense.
linuxftw 3y ago
Sometimes 'no evidence' also means there is evidence, they're just ignoring it. Like myocarditis.
- acdha 3y ago
  Where by “ignoring” you mean “carefully studying and doing comparative risk analysis”? That risk was reported early on, and has been very well covered over time but each round of studies has shown that catching COVID while unvaccinated is substantially riskier.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - linuxftw 3y ago
    Public health officials summarily denied any association early on. The only serious risk they acknowledged was propylene glycol allergy.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Do you have any evidence to support that assertion? I first learned of the issue from the scientific community tracking the data collected by the public health community. Here’s an example of what that looked like in June 2021, covering developments in May, just 5 months after the first country in the world had approved the vaccine (UK, 2020-12): https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/myocarditis-coronavirus-vaccine https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/myocarditis-coronavirus-va... Similarly Israel’s public health agency’s report was covered in June 2021: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-sees-probable-link-between-pfizer-vaccine-small-number-myocarditis-cases-2021-06-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-sees-probab...
      - linuxftw 3y ago
        Here's a quote from the very Reuters article you linked: > The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said last week that heart inflammation after receiving the Pfizer vaccine had been no cause for concern as such incidents were similar rate to those in the general population. The CDC and other agencies also continue to heavily downplay the risk as 'mild myocarditis.'
Sporktacular 3y ago
"We had no evidence that masks help and then we found no evidence." Actually we did from the decades surgeons wore masks to prevent the spread of airborne diseases. Once we knew Covid was one of them, then even if the protection was one way, it would have reduced infections if everyone wore one.
- u32480932048 3y ago
  One of my pet peeves is the continued use of ambiguous phrases like "masks work" or "masks help" when there are effectively two different mechanisms (inhalation/exhalation). I suspect the prolonged mass confusion over such an elementary topic will be one for the Science Communicator books.
  - titzer 3y ago
    IMHO the issue is that masks work but masking as a social phenomenon can suffer a number of problems, like non-compliance, partial compliance, poor fit, children, misuse, reuse, damaged masks, cloth masks, needing to eat, and all kinds of factors. So scientific experiments in a controlled setting with one or two people show that masks work as a mechanism, but getting everyone to go along with and practice good masking etiquette might not work so well. So population studies show masks working much worse than their mechanism would suggest they can. Especially when there is intentional non-compliance and protests motivated by culture war battles. Arguing with people who just spout "masks don't work" and then intentionally are non-compliant (and encourage others to) is like arguing with motivated idiots. No, masks work, period. Masking only works if people freaking do it. edit: spelling
    - agos 3y ago
      on the flip side, so much of the Covid discourse was about these fabled policies which would do great things (but required 100% compliance), followed by indignation/panic and hysteria/angry mobs when it turned out that 100% compliance is hard.
      - 3y ago
bluGill 3y ago
Just because you have not looked for evidence does not mean it doesn't exist. I have no evidence that my neighbor has a water softener - but that evidence does exist and I could obtain it in several ways (ask him; break into his house). Maybe he doesn't have one, maybe he does - but either way the evidence exists if I cared to look for it.
andrewla 3y ago
That's one sense in which it is used, but the other sense is the opposite -- "no evidence that covid vaccines cause people to become magnetic" is not a "yeah, we haven't checked for the evidence yet, but we'll get right on it". The point of the article is because this can cut both ways it is impossible to distinguish between the shades of meaning, and the phrase should be discarded entirely.
blub 3y ago
There’s different kinds of “masks” and different kinds of “work” FFP3 are the standard for protecting against airborne disease and they work as intended. That’s literally one of the purposes they’re designed for. FF2/N95 also work quite well, which was known for a long time, including from SARS and MERS studies. Work can mean that they prevent transmission or reduce the risk. It might have been worth wearing a surgical mask, as I remember reading that it did reduce risk enough for it to be recommended in Germany once the establishment got over their mask procurement predicament. Finally, original Covid was not as contagious as current Covid, which is one of the if not the most contagious airborne disease. Based on e.g. SARS it would have been rational to recommend FFP2 masks, as was done in e.g. South Korea. However, incompetent Westen governments utterly failed to make such masks available to the population, so they tended to err on the “no evidence masks work” side.
gdubs 3y ago
No evidence sounds definitive. "We _lack_ evidence" would be clearer, for instance, because it at least suggests that their _could_ be evidence, but it hasn't been found yet.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  No, actually, definitive would be "We have evidence to the contrary".
- RyEgswuCsn 3y ago
  __lack__ evidence sounds like you have already made up you mind but is just searching for confirmation. I'd say a better expression would be "we don't know yet whether ...", e.g.: "we don't know yet whether Covid is airborne".
indymike 3y ago
> Sometimes “no evidence” means that we haven’t found compelling evidence yet. Most of the time when no evidence is used, it's to drive political or business activity. For example: “There is no evidence that Asbestos is unsafe.” I wish that news media would just be honest, or tell us when research is ongoing so people people were not panicking over something that is simply just not known. “Researchers have good reason to believe that masks will help prevent the spread of COVID-19, but research is ongoing at _______ to determine if COVID-19 is airborne, and how effective masks are in preventing the spread of COVID-19.” Unfortunately, the truth is boring and outrage and panic drive clicks.
somewhereoutth 3y ago
Except of course that masks do help, and we did find evidence. However many would like to justify their inability to accommodate the slightest inconvenience necessary to help the people around them - a clear case of starting with the premise ("I don't like wearing a mask") and then perceiving any data through that view.
- NoPie 3y ago
  That's not accurate. Obviously there are many different studies with different conclusions. But by “evidence” we usually mean the total conclusion from all of them. In medicine it is usually done via metareviews and even then evidence can be graded to different levels and quality. So, in short, Cochrane review shows that we don't have a good quality evidence that masks were effective. And the low quality evidence indicates that masks either had no or very little effect. Some people try to quote one or two studies out of context but that's not helpful because we need to take the totality of evidence into account. It is possible that once we obtain high quality evidence, these conclusions will be overturned. Surprisingly there is very little interest in doing such studies.
  - somewhereoutth 3y ago
    Total conclusion from all of them would be a high bar, given that such a large section of society had become convinced that they do not work for reasons far removed from any facts. Lots of people died.
    - NoPie 3y ago
      What do you mean by high bar? Cochrane group are specialists who do exactly that and provide gold standard of evidence. Sometimes the evidence goes against accepted wisdom. That's how science work.
samtho 3y ago
The problem with the phrase “No evidence” outside of a scientific context is that it sounds like it’s dodging the question, when, as you pointed out, it just means we don’t have data to support that relationship. The other way this is used is to try to “prove” a negative by communicating that we cannot establish a link, and may be accompanied by the expert stating there is evidence for the opposite case. Text bites rarely have context other than this “no evidence” statement. For a layperson, they feel like they are having the wool pulled over their eyes and are not given a truthful answer. For example: Interviewer: Can you say for certain that X causes Y? Scientist: We have no evidence that X causes Y. Interviewer: But can you say for certain that Y is NOT caused by X? Scientist: There is no evidence of that relationship. The scientist is trying to choose their words carefully because they are operating on the principle of only communicating what the data is telling us. The interviewer wants a clear, definitive answer. Both parties become frustrated. I do agree with the article that this is poor communication because the scientist sounds like a lawyer and is hiding something rather than stating the facts of the situation. I’m sure there are better ways to communicate this that communicate either “we don’t know yet” and “we do not believe there is a link” instead this line. Side note: another related and interesting distinction is the difference between unproven and disproven. If you saw a headline that a major hypothesis was “unproven”, it means only that there is no data to support it. Disproven is what the layman often thinks this means which is actively finding evidence to the contrary.

by NoPie 3y ago

darkerside 3y ago

Also scientifically justified, "Scientists investigating whether COVID is airborne". Either of those headlines leads people down a path. Also, I think the whole question here is, who decides what qualifies as "compelling" evidence?

stevenAthompson 3y ago
>Also, I think the whole question here is, who decides what qualifies as "compelling" evidence? Qualified experts. Any other answer eventually turns into political gibbering and social media nonsense.

linuxftw 3y ago

Sometimes 'no evidence' also means there is evidence, they're just ignoring it. Like myocarditis.

acdha 3y ago
Where by “ignoring” you mean “carefully studying and doing comparative risk analysis”? That risk was reported early on, and has been very well covered over time but each round of studies has shown that catching COVID while unvaccinated is substantially riskier.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- linuxftw 3y ago
  Public health officials summarily denied any association early on. The only serious risk they acknowledged was propylene glycol allergy.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Do you have any evidence to support that assertion? I first learned of the issue from the scientific community tracking the data collected by the public health community. Here’s an example of what that looked like in June 2021, covering developments in May, just 5 months after the first country in the world had approved the vaccine (UK, 2020-12): https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/myocarditis-coronavirus-vaccine https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/myocarditis-coronavirus-va... Similarly Israel’s public health agency’s report was covered in June 2021: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-sees-probable-link-between-pfizer-vaccine-small-number-myocarditis-cases-2021-06-01/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-sees-probab...
    - linuxftw 3y ago
      Here's a quote from the very Reuters article you linked: > The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said last week that heart inflammation after receiving the Pfizer vaccine had been no cause for concern as such incidents were similar rate to those in the general population. The CDC and other agencies also continue to heavily downplay the risk as 'mild myocarditis.'

Sporktacular 3y ago

"We had no evidence that masks help and then we found no evidence." Actually we did from the decades surgeons wore masks to prevent the spread of airborne diseases. Once we knew Covid was one of them, then even if the protection was one way, it would have reduced infections if everyone wore one.

u32480932048 3y ago
One of my pet peeves is the continued use of ambiguous phrases like "masks work" or "masks help" when there are effectively two different mechanisms (inhalation/exhalation). I suspect the prolonged mass confusion over such an elementary topic will be one for the Science Communicator books.
- titzer 3y ago
  IMHO the issue is that masks work but masking as a social phenomenon can suffer a number of problems, like non-compliance, partial compliance, poor fit, children, misuse, reuse, damaged masks, cloth masks, needing to eat, and all kinds of factors. So scientific experiments in a controlled setting with one or two people show that masks work as a mechanism, but getting everyone to go along with and practice good masking etiquette might not work so well. So population studies show masks working much worse than their mechanism would suggest they can. Especially when there is intentional non-compliance and protests motivated by culture war battles. Arguing with people who just spout "masks don't work" and then intentionally are non-compliant (and encourage others to) is like arguing with motivated idiots. No, masks work, period. Masking only works if people freaking do it. edit: spelling
  - agos 3y ago
    on the flip side, so much of the Covid discourse was about these fabled policies which would do great things (but required 100% compliance), followed by indignation/panic and hysteria/angry mobs when it turned out that 100% compliance is hard.
    - 3y ago

bluGill 3y ago

Just because you have not looked for evidence does not mean it doesn't exist. I have no evidence that my neighbor has a water softener - but that evidence does exist and I could obtain it in several ways (ask him; break into his house). Maybe he doesn't have one, maybe he does - but either way the evidence exists if I cared to look for it.

andrewla 3y ago

That's one sense in which it is used, but the other sense is the opposite -- "no evidence that covid vaccines cause people to become magnetic" is not a "yeah, we haven't checked for the evidence yet, but we'll get right on it". The point of the article is because this can cut both ways it is impossible to distinguish between the shades of meaning, and the phrase should be discarded entirely.

blub 3y ago

There’s different kinds of “masks” and different kinds of “work” FFP3 are the standard for protecting against airborne disease and they work as intended. That’s literally one of the purposes they’re designed for. FF2/N95 also work quite well, which was known for a long time, including from SARS and MERS studies. Work can mean that they prevent transmission or reduce the risk. It might have been worth wearing a surgical mask, as I remember reading that it did reduce risk enough for it to be recommended in Germany once the establishment got over their mask procurement predicament. Finally, original Covid was not as contagious as current Covid, which is one of the if not the most contagious airborne disease. Based on e.g. SARS it would have been rational to recommend FFP2 masks, as was done in e.g. South Korea. However, incompetent Westen governments utterly failed to make such masks available to the population, so they tended to err on the “no evidence masks work” side.

gdubs 3y ago

No evidence sounds definitive. "We _lack_ evidence" would be clearer, for instance, because it at least suggests that their _could_ be evidence, but it hasn't been found yet.

mrguyorama 3y ago
No, actually, definitive would be "We have evidence to the contrary".
RyEgswuCsn 3y ago
__lack__ evidence sounds like you have already made up you mind but is just searching for confirmation. I'd say a better expression would be "we don't know yet whether ...", e.g.: "we don't know yet whether Covid is airborne".

indymike 3y ago

> Sometimes “no evidence” means that we haven’t found compelling evidence yet. Most of the time when no evidence is used, it's to drive political or business activity. For example: “There is no evidence that Asbestos is unsafe.” I wish that news media would just be honest, or tell us when research is ongoing so people people were not panicking over something that is simply just not known. “Researchers have good reason to believe that masks will help prevent the spread of COVID-19, but research is ongoing at _______ to determine if COVID-19 is airborne, and how effective masks are in preventing the spread of COVID-19.” Unfortunately, the truth is boring and outrage and panic drive clicks.

somewhereoutth 3y ago

Except of course that masks do help, and we did find evidence. However many would like to justify their inability to accommodate the slightest inconvenience necessary to help the people around them - a clear case of starting with the premise ("I don't like wearing a mask") and then perceiving any data through that view.

NoPie 3y ago
That's not accurate. Obviously there are many different studies with different conclusions. But by “evidence” we usually mean the total conclusion from all of them. In medicine it is usually done via metareviews and even then evidence can be graded to different levels and quality. So, in short, Cochrane review shows that we don't have a good quality evidence that masks were effective. And the low quality evidence indicates that masks either had no or very little effect. Some people try to quote one or two studies out of context but that's not helpful because we need to take the totality of evidence into account. It is possible that once we obtain high quality evidence, these conclusions will be overturned. Surprisingly there is very little interest in doing such studies.
- somewhereoutth 3y ago
  Total conclusion from all of them would be a high bar, given that such a large section of society had become convinced that they do not work for reasons far removed from any facts. Lots of people died.
  - NoPie 3y ago
    What do you mean by high bar? Cochrane group are specialists who do exactly that and provide gold standard of evidence. Sometimes the evidence goes against accepted wisdom. That's how science work.

samtho 3y ago

The problem with the phrase “No evidence” outside of a scientific context is that it sounds like it’s dodging the question, when, as you pointed out, it just means we don’t have data to support that relationship. The other way this is used is to try to “prove” a negative by communicating that we cannot establish a link, and may be accompanied by the expert stating there is evidence for the opposite case. Text bites rarely have context other than this “no evidence” statement. For a layperson, they feel like they are having the wool pulled over their eyes and are not given a truthful answer. For example: Interviewer: Can you say for certain that X causes Y? Scientist: We have no evidence that X causes Y. Interviewer: But can you say for certain that Y is NOT caused by X? Scientist: There is no evidence of that relationship. The scientist is trying to choose their words carefully because they are operating on the principle of only communicating what the data is telling us. The interviewer wants a clear, definitive answer. Both parties become frustrated. I do agree with the article that this is poor communication because the scientist sounds like a lawyer and is hiding something rather than stating the facts of the situation. I’m sure there are better ways to communicate this that communicate either “we don’t know yet” and “we do not believe there is a link” instead this line. Side note: another related and interesting distinction is the difference between unproven and disproven. If you saw a headline that a major hypothesis was “unproven”, it means only that there is no data to support it. Disproven is what the layman often thinks this means which is actively finding evidence to the contrary.