Re:New York Times retracts core of podcast series ‘Caliphate’
by whiddershins on Saturday December 19, 2020 @12:59PM
(#25479468)
He literally said in a later interview that he lied. It doesn’t require a conspiracy for someone to lie. People sometimes just lie.
Re:New York Times retracts core of podcast series ‘Caliphate’
by wutbrodo on Saturday December 19, 2020 @02:03PM
(#25480121)
This reasoning is nonsense. The early days of the pandemic aren't going to have a high-N RCT, so reasoning from higher-uncertainty sources of knowledge is important. An obvious prior for a fucking _respiratory_ disease is that masks reduce population spread, and the no-cost recommendation to wear masks in the early pandemic is one of the few policy levers that would have actually saved lives.
Re:New York Times retracts core of podcast series ‘Caliphate’
by ummonk on Saturday December 19, 2020 @01:09PM
(#25479576)
We knew all along how viral respiratory diseases including corona viruses are transmitted, and that masks have some effectiveness in preventing spread for such viruses. In the absence of direct evidence one way or another for masking effectiveness COVID itself, the reasonable assumption would have been that masks are indeed effective until proven otherwise.
What he said in March was that he didn't believe there was any reason for most fo the public to wear a mask, that's because he didn't have any evidence that it was effective at that time. Evidence is a reason, absence of evidence is not a reason for action. This is very simple. I happen to have thought even at the time that we should be wearing masks, but that was just an opinion and at that time the opposite opinion was also reasonable. We were still working things out.
Accusing him of lying in service of some conspiracy theory really is going too far.