I may take issue with some of your other statements but fully agree with this observation.
A critical thinker needs to be highly skeptical of the appeal to authority used by invoking the phrases “the science says”, or “studies have shown”.
Here's a better argument for wearing masks:
https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7
A crucial piece of evidence IMO is "the salon story where two infected stylists failed to infect all their 140 clients (making the probability of infection for bilateral mask wearing safely below 1% for a salon-style exposure)"
There's another good point about "evidence". Do you need a scientific study in order to convince yourself to lock your door at night? Does the lack of scientific evidence in that regard make you go "I think I should not lock my door" or worse "people who lock their doors at night are crazy"? It's an absurd thing.
Studies on this are generally poor quality, and you can easily tell by looking at the study content.
Remember when early 2020 all the official organizations (WHO, CDC) were telling people to NOT wear masks because studies showed they didn't work? Yea. Turned out all the studies were really bad quality.
"Scientific" publishing is broken and you simply can't rely on it for useful information. Many studies don't even replicate, but they still get published and cited.
For another example, see: https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1459275924059217920
Basically, whenever I hear "studies have shown ..." I just don't care. Let the studies show whatever they want. I will go with my own experience and with personal anecdotes I hear from people. They are way more consistent and reliable.