Science vs. “The Science”

I think it’s cute whenever people tell me they follow the science on twitter, and since you’re limited to like….240 characters it’s not worth your time to debate, so might as well make my general argument here so I can post a link and tell people to fuck right off. They think they are smart by saying they trust the science. It is 100% identical to Christians in the 30s who’d say “God told me to do it”. Gee, I guess I don’t want to contradict God right? In 2022 — gee I don’t want to contradict “science”.

Trust the Scientist.

What many people mean when they say they follow the science is that they believe their local authority (health, politicians). This could also be termed “trust the scientist” which is the opposite of science. Scientific communities are always arguing because of how data is interpreted, and because of unknowns that are not properly accounted for in an experiment. A good scientist is a natural skeptic, they doubt and question themselves, their own theories, and most certainly other people’s theories. There is very little, if ever, scientific consensus. Some scientists are always contrarian, for the sake of being contrarian — and they provide a very useful role in that their scientific adversarial minds provides new insight and new ways of looking at a theory. We’re battle hardened by those who wish to prove us wrong. If everyone agrees with a theory, it becomes easier to succumb to group think.

So these folks who tell you they trust the science, at their core, trust that the systems put in place for evaluating data are coherent, non politicized and they trust in good people doing the right thing. At their core they believe in the good nature of people in positions doing the right thing. That’s not science FWIW, it’s the opposite of science. We have thousands of years of empirical evidence that humans aren’t like that. I will generalize 3 categories of people I’ve run into in my career.

1. People with selfish ambition, people who are trying to push an agenda, or trying to advance their career. These people do what’s right for #1, they aren’t trying to do the right thing, they push others down in order to prop themselves up. They do well in corporate America, they often succeed and leave a trail of bodies. Sometimes they do the right thing but it’s because it’s inline with their own benefit. We all know these people, they exist and you’re stupid to suggest they don’t or that they are not involved in key decisions around public policy or in our institutions.
2. People genuinely just trying to do the right thing and they work hard to help everyone win. They are good, often not too self serving and honest.
3. People who are inept, lazy or incompetent. There are more or less of these people based on incentives (high pay, can’t fire em). They make mistakes, they hide them. They don’t perform due diligence like they should. We all know these people too, they exist and you’re stupid to suggest they don’t or that they are not involved in key decisions around public policy or in our institutions.

People who trust in “The Science” completely ignore that persons 1&3 even exist. They don’t think Fauci will make millions for pushing Pfizer, nor would they accept that he spits off data from a Pfizer audit performed by someone who spends all their time on Twitter and gave them a thumbs up instead of actually doing their job.

I personally don’t trust the systems that we have in place, because I don’t trust people because of many years of empirical evidence that 1&3 make up the majority. This is why I always to see the data behind their statements, because as a scientist I don’t trust their interpretation of the data until I see it for myself.

Science and the scientific method.

Science is pretty basic, let’s go back to 5th grade science class shall we?

1. Talk about the problem.
2. Form a hypothesis based on your background (intuition)
3. Conduct your experiment. (controlled variables)
4. Observe the results.
5. Form conclusions and discuss results.

Many people confuse intuition for science, when really their intuition is only good enough to form a hypothesis. John tells me that masks work to slow the spread of Covid. Intuitively he’s right, it will catch spit, I can visualize that — it seems apparent, it seems to make sense. This is where most people quit thinking and just assume that their hypothesis is correct. They deride those who disagree even at this point because they believe others lack the same intuition. But that ain’t science.

1. You need to conduct an experiment of the efficacy of masks, based on types, based on how they are worn, based on other controllable variables like hand washing, ventilation, etc.
2. You observe and document results
3. You form conclusions and discuss results. The conclusions must call out the assumptions (based on controlled variables)

For what little research exists on masks specifically to Covid, they are never testing with cloth masks, they always have very clean / sanitized hands when touching the masks. They don’t accommodate for different variants of Covid19. The conclusions would then yield a level of measured efficacy against very specific conditions. That is science.

When my friend John turns around and generalizes those results — that IS NOT science.

Science applied to public policy.

Now we get into public policy and this is when science just goes out the fucking door. So let’s say we have some data that under very specific circumstances masks are effective — intuition would tell you that if you mandate everyone do it that it would help right? Well remember what we said about intuition, if we want to be scientists then it’s helpful to make a hypothesis. For example — this is a valid hypothesis:

“We believe that if we mandate people use medical masks in all public spaces that it will decrease the spread.”

Your leaders implement the policy (this is the experiment phase). You think you’re following the science but really you are just a variable in an experiment. The science by definition is not settled, you’re in the middle of the scientific process now. The number of unknowns in this experiment is unknown, but one thing you can still do is measure data and form conclusions based on the data. The conclusions however must be VERY narrow and since you don’t know the unknowns they are in fact useless in the exact same experiment conducted at a later date, since the outcomes may be completely different.

What does Robert mean by an unknown you might ask? Well what if people don’t wear the masks? What percentage will wear them? What percentage will wear crappy fake masks? What percentage will not change the masks, or never wash their hands, or go out sick in public because now they have the masks? All of these will affect the outcome of the experiment, and those ratios change every time you run the experiment so you can’t even model the outcomes of a particular public policy based on previous policies.

Metal fatigue is an interesting property of metal. I did this experiment once with paperclips, how many times can you bend the paper clip until it broke, test it across hundreds of paper clips. Consider that it takes a number of bends before the paperclip snaps. It seems obvious to anyone who’s broken metal before but it’s an actual thing. This affects experiments with metal because what happens to the metal under a certain stress is different based on prior stress (which may be unknown) or even the manufacturing process. It’s very important for engineering.

People are the same, they fatigue, they have stress in their lives, they are worried about money, they worry about their kids, they get yelled at by their bosses — people fatigue, and they respond differently to stress/demands based on prior stress and their current circumstance. In the scientific world, this means their response to a public mandate can’t be predicted. One thing that is clear from the data, is that the effects of each mandate decreases with each iteration, indicating that people fatigue is a real thing. The data from the latest waves indicate that there are no differences in outcomes from locations that have mandates from those that don’t.

If you believe in science — then you must look at the data. The data suggests that mandates no longer have any efficacy at all. And this isn’t because “masks never work”, it’s because people are done, and “mask mandates no longer work”. They may have yielded positive outcomes in the initial waves of Covid, but it’s clear they do fuck all now. Following science, means ending mandates.

Statements I am fine with

• The vaccines have been shown to be effective at decreasing your risk of negative outcomes if you catch Covid (original variant, less so for UK, less so for Delta). The effect is short lived (not enough long term data but data suggests efficacy wanes after 6months).
• Long term side effects of the vaccine are unknown as no long term controlled data is available.
• A properly worn N95 mask can help in reducing transmission for infected persons. (I do NOT agree with making this statement for ‘asymptomatic carriers).
• Vitamin D deficiency increases your risk of negative outcomes if you catch Covid.
• Obesity increases your risk of negative outcomes if you catch covid.

Conclusions I personally make in my life based on the above data.

• I’m fit, I’m 38 and I eat healthy. I take a vitamin supplement — this places me in a low risk category for getting any negative covid outcomes. Therefore I make the personal decision to avoid getting the vaccine.
• My children will never get vaccinated for Covid because they are kids.
• If I’m sick I stay home to avoid getting others sick.
• When I’m not sick, there’s no reason for me to wear a mask.
• If a future variant behaves differently (affects younger healthier people) then I may reconsider my options at that time.

Contrary to goodthinkers — I’m actually following all of the available data that is out there, I am incredibly informed and believe it’s my choice to make the decision that is right for my life based on the information provided to me. Fuck you if you think I should not be allowed to make my own choice.