I don't care what CDC reps cited in a single presser.

Did The Atlantic conclusively report that that was the only data evaluated by CDC? No, of course not. Does The Atlantic even know? I doubt it.

If you and I are experts, and I gave you a hundred pieces of evidence, and you were already convinced by the 20th piece of evidence, and they're all complicated and hard to understand, and then I gave you one more piece of evidence that had a really easy to understand statistic you could easily share with lay people, how would you communicate with the public? Would you purposefully avoid sharing the really easy to understand statistic? Would someone be correct that that one piece of evidence was "what convinced you?"

You and I don't know how heavily this study weighed in their deliberations, and we especially don't know it to a degree of certainty to say "THE STUDY THAT CONVINCED THE CDC."

Me: "Hi boss, because of Y the company needs to do X".

Boss: "Okay".

a few days later

Boss: "Y is not true, we should re-evaluate X since Y is what convinced us"

This would be a totally fair exchange and 100% correct. It does not matter if there are 5 other things that prompted me to bring this up to my boss. I hung my hat on Y being true and that's how I presented it. It's what convinced us. It shouldn't be a big deal for me, as an adult and a professional, to say "yep, I messed up. here's the other reasons to still do X."

CDC does admit things like that, and changes its advice all the time based on evolving facts. Every day, practically.

Which is why they have 100x more credibility than some uncredentialed anti-masker with an axe to grind.

I agree! In fact, they just did it with their 5-day quarantine recommendation. Which is why I think it's important that the facts they use to publicly justify their decision are under constant scrutiny. If they are not, the CDC's credibility disintegrates.

I'm glad we're both on the same page.

There are reasonable discussions to be had about the CDC's credibility.

Then there are bad faith discussions about the CDC's credibility.

Are you aware that repeatedly exposing someone to false information leads them to believe it?

If you start from the belief that the CDC is credible, you can use phrases like, "The CDC made a mistake in relying on this study."

If you start from the belief that the CDC is not credible, you would can use phrases like "CDC / Junk Science."

You could, as another commented on this thread, say "If the CDC intentionally chose to lie to the public about their reason for a decision, that's really really bad."

There's is ZERO EVIDENCE that they intentionally lied.

That's like me saying, "If user lghh was involved in dog fighting, that's really really bad."

I have no evidence of it, and it gives people a bad impression of you.

The CDC has well-earned credibility, and the people who are questioning the CDC most effectively in the public circle (Fox News, Infowars, Joe Rogan) should have lost any credibility they had long, long ago. But questioning the CDC is profitable. People are exploiting fears to make money.

So, if you want to engage in good faith discussions, that's awesome. But maybe, just maybe, avoid phrases like "The study (implying there was only one) that convinced the CDC to support mask mandates in schools is JUNK SCIENCE!"

Doctor: "You should eat a healthy diet and exercise, especially because of your blood pressure readings today."

You: "I just ran up the stairs, so that blood pressure reading is junk science."

Doctor: "Oh, okay then, yeah, then you are unique in all of mankind that you no longer need to worry about a healthy diet and exercise."

It is totally reasonable to ask for the other evidence they used to support mask mandates for kids, yes, for sure. It's not reasonable to even imply mask mandates for kids are junk science. Not yet.

Should we continue our dialog with the CDC? Yes.

Was the CDC intentionally basing its decisions on Junk Science? No.

Was this one study the one that "convinced" the CDC? Some people in this thread (including the author) seem certain it was. I believe their certainty is ridiculous.

Your analogy is not representative of what I posted or what happened in the article.

I think we're talking past each other.

> It's not reasonable to even imply mask mandates for kids are junk science. Not yet.

Nobody did this. I didn't. The posted links didn't. This never happened. Can you point out what you read that made you think this was anyone's point? In fact, the linked article specifically says this isn't the case.

> Nobody did this.

I am stating my belief that the article headline did exactly that:

"The Study That Convinced the CDC To Support Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."

That reads to me as click bait, which gives the impression, "Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."

I can state that because the headline has the phrase, "Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science" at the end of it, and people are lazy readers.

I'm also stating my belief that the author has NO WAY of knowing how many studies the CDC used to convince them to support Mask Mandates in Schools, so it's wildly inappropriate for the author to use the word "THE." They should have instead said "A."

> That reads to me as click bait, which gives the impression, "Mask Mandates in Schools Is Junk Science."

It strictly does not do that and neither does the article beyond the headline. We'll agree to disagree.

Why are you so certain that no one will get that impression?

I even gave you a reason why they would: people are lazy readers. Do you deny that?

The phrase at the end of the sentence is what people will pay attention to. Do you deny that?

I'm informing you: there are people who will get the wrong impression from that headline. Apparently among them, Facebook Fact Checkers.

If the CDC intentionally chose to lie to the public about their reason for a decision, that's really really bad.

If josephcsible intentionally chose to lie about running a dog fighting club, that's really really bad.

I have as much evidence for my bad faith statement as you do for yours.

I'm not saying that the CDC actually did lie in this case. I'm continuing the hypothetical from your previous comment, where you said that the CDC would be convinced by evidence piece #20, but then tell the public that they were convinced by evidence piece #21.

They did not "then tell the public" that "the one that convinced them" was this one study.

In communicating with the public, they happened to cite #21, because explaining all 21 would take too long and be confusing for you, and be distracting.

Refuting the specific evidence in #21 does not directly refute the other 20, and does not make the conclusion "Junk Science" as the headline apparently unintentionally implied. And the headline had no business saying "The study," when they have no idea how many studies the CDC internally considered.

I don't see any evidence that they intentionally chose to lie. Do you?

I suppose I could have worded that more clearly. I wasn't saying they did in real life. I was continuing a hypothetical started in the comment I replied to, and in the hypothetical they obviously did.