“Follow the Science”
What Are We Following?
I keep hearing that we need to “follow the science” – whether about global warming, or vaccines, or masks, or what have you. It sounds like simple and obvious advice. Some conclusions are supported by science, and so all the pro-science people believe those conclusions. The people who reject them are anti-science. Obviously, science is good, so you should accept the scientific conclusions.
But I don’t think it is so simple. Hardly any of the science-followers have actually read and evaluated the relevant scientific evidence. So most of what we call “following the science” is really following the assertions of journalists, political activists, or government officials about the science. The problem is that it’s all too easy to claim the mantle of science.
For example, science says that philosophy professors should be paid a minimum of $500,000 a year. So you better agree with that, otherwise you’re anti-science.
See how easy it is? Maybe you think that’s an unfair example, because no one would so blatantly abuse the “science says P” formula. There’s obviously nothing like a scientific study supporting that, so no one would say that. Nor would any readers fall for that. Would they?
Well, no, not just like that. But that illustrates the relevant point. Believing P because someone told you that science supports P isn’t the same as following science. It’s following that person’s assertions. Maybe that person is a perfectly objective and reliable judge of scientific evidence. Maybe they are biased because of an ideology, because of personal interests, or because someone else told them what to say. Maybe they unwisely trusted other people who are so biased. Or maybe they simply did not understand the scientific evidence or theories. Journalists, by the way, are almost always biased and fail to understand scientific evidence or theories that they report on.
Mask Science
I was recently trying to follow the science about masking. My university has a mask mandate for students in the classroom. The buses in the area require masks for passengers as well. (The Empire also requires masks for most of its employees.)
Is this supported by the science?
Trust the CDC?
The CDC now advises unvaccinated people to wear masks while inside (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html). (But the mask mandates around here apply even to vaccinated people.)
We all remember, however, that at the start of the pandemic, the CDC told us that we didn’t need masks, and the official guidance has changed a few times since then (https://news.yahoo.com/timeline-cdcs-advice-face-masks-234738419.html). Were they telling the truth back then, or were they just lying because they wanted to stop a run on masks so that there would be more available for health care workers?
I don’t know, but either way, the CDC’s guidance is not purely scientific. They do not simply report the facts; they say what they think it will be socially useful for us to hear. Either they were lying at the start of the pandemic, or they’re lying now.
Aside: This is why you shouldn’t lie for minor reasons. People remember your lie, and they discount what you say in the future. Now if the CDC has something really important to tell us, half the population won’t believe it.
Why would anyone be lying now? Government agencies are under political control, and Covid-19 has become politicized. Like it or not, making a big deal about Covid and all the measures we should take to combat it is a Democrat position. I don’t know whether the Biden administration has specifically directed the CDC to support masking, but it would be entirely unsurprising if they did. If Republicans take back the White House in 2024, get ready for CDC guidance to change again.
RCT’s
The best kind of study in the medical world is the randomized, controlled trial (RCT). This is a kind of study in which people are randomly assigned to a treatment group (who receive whatever intervention you’re testing the efficacy of) and a control group (who receive nothing, or a placebo).
Jeffrey Anderson at City Journal reviewed the evidence from RCT’s on the effectiveness of masks in preventing respiratory infections: https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence
In case you’re short on time, here’s a summary paragraph from the end of the article:
"In sum, of the 14 RCTs that have tested the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, three suggest, but do not provide any statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis, that masks might be useful. The other eleven suggest that masks are either useless—whether compared with no masks or because they appear not to add to good hand hygiene alone—or actually counterproductive. Of the three studies that provided statistically significant evidence in intention-to-treat analysis that was not contradicted within the same study, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than hand hygiene alone, one found that the combination of surgical masks and hand hygiene was less effective than nothing, and one found that cloth masks were less effective than surgical masks."
Counterproductive? What?
You might be wondering, just theoretically, how mask use could possibly be counterproductive. Surely it’s either beneficial or has no effect, right?
The answer is that pathogens can survive for extended periods on the mask, especially if you use a cloth mask. The user touches the mask, then touches his face, etc. (this is discussed in this study, p. 6: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275360639_A_cluster_randomised_trial_of_cloth_masks_compared_with_medical_masks_in_healthcare_workers). That’s how mask wearing might increase disease spread.
A New Study
After Anderson wrote that article, a new RCT was published. (Journalistic summary: https://theconversation.com/evidence-shows-that-yes-masks-prevent-covid-19-and-surgical-masks-are-the-way-to-go-167963; academic paper: https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mask_Second_Stage_Paper_20211102.pdf.) The new study found a modest benefit from promoting the use of masks in rural villages in Bangladesh, in terms of reducing the spread of Covid-19.
Does that settle the issue at last? Not really. That’s one more RCT added to the 14 that Anderson reviewed. Add to the paragraph from Anderson above the words, “And one more RCT found a small benefit for community mask-wearing.” That still leaves the evidence very equivocal.
Following Science Is Not So Easy
Conclusion: It’s not so easy to follow the science. Often, there are many different studies, some with conflicting results, some with ambiguous results. Some will study different questions that are related to the main question you want to answer but not exactly that question. Very often, a journalist can spin the studies to sound like they support whatever general point of view he or she is angling for. A study might find that certain kinds of masks are useful, but other masks are counterproductive. E.g., N95 respirators are much better than cloth masks. In that case, two journalists with opposite orientations might report that as “the study shows the benefits of masks” or “the study showed the harms of masks”.
Or a study might find, say, that masks are better than nothing, but that masks combined with hand hygiene are inferior to hand hygiene alone. (This isn’t unrealistic: again, pathogens can survive on the mask. If the wearer touches the mask periodically, that could defeat the benefits of hand hygiene.) Once again, one journalist will report this as “science shows that masks are effective” while another reports it as “science shows that masks are counterproductive”.
All this is annoyingly complicated, and we’re just looking at this little, seemingly simple question about face masks. Imagine how annoying it’s going to be to evaluate something like global warming.