Bayesian logic is rather low level math, something like using a hammer to fill a glass. In other words, it validates making logical leaps for people who have no actual empirically-based predictors to throw their speculations into a "model" which then validates their speculation. In other words, it doesn't test reality -- it tests the mod…
Bayesian logic is rather low level math, something like using a hammer to fill a glass. In other words, it validates making logical leaps for people who have no actual empirically-based predictors to throw their speculations into a "model" which then validates their speculation. In other words, it doesn't test reality -- it tests the model in your head.
Whether or not that model actually applies to reality requires inference. Inference is what we do in real life when making decisions on the ground. It also is the basis of all superstition.
So, basically you're saying, you accept superstition (i.e., the mask inferences) for one reason ("because physics", which is actually a political argument, not a scientific one, because inference) and want to discard it for another (i.e., ivermectin).
Nope, you don't get to play preferences "because physics". The admission must be made that an inference is the opposite of "water tight" and that has to be considered a different class of methodology entirely to an RCT, which actually accounts for reality, rather that superstition, because it tests things that are actually measurable rather than using inference.
This is case and point why science cannot exist without philosophy. Otherwise it's just number games and fantasies, you know, Bayesian logic.
The number of people hanging onto "Masks must do something" despite MOUNTAINS of decent evidence that they do nothing and essentially NO evidence that they do anything with people in the real world is just astonishing. It is dressed up with "Bayesian this" or "stochastic that" but (and I love your "using a hammer to fill a glass" analogy) it is just flat out wrong.
When I was on psychiatry in medical school, we had a patient who was up before dawn every day, went to the window, and as we watched he lifted his hands and the sun rose synchronously. Every Bayesian analysis of the data says that his actions were 100% correlated with the sun rising. This is where so many of these "physics show that in conditions that have never and will never exist with real people in real places, masks might have done some particle reduction" recitations live. They just ignore all of the hundreds of studies that say that this does not apply in real people...which would be exactly the same as ignoring the fact that the sun rose each day after the patient was strapped to his bed.
I have tried to have conversations with these people, but their religious belief in doing whatever it takes to prove that masks work is insuperable. Sad.
Vinay and I have our differences, but to his credit, he has come around from "masks could be bioplausible" to "clearly they do not work and the evidence is overwhelming". Anyone who will abandon their medical-intervention-as-religion approach when given evidence is a really, really good doctor. Kudos to him. This article is spot on.
Dr. K - I just had major abdominal surgery and I cannot tell you how glad I was that - literally this past Monday - the mask mandate in the system I had surgery in had been lifted. Nurses and docs cheerfully entered my room sans masks and we chatted about my successful outcome and progress, no masks, no fear. It almost felt good! 😉. Happy to say I’m home now and continuing my journey
Bayesian logic is rather low level math, something like using a hammer to fill a glass. In other words, it validates making logical leaps for people who have no actual empirically-based predictors to throw their speculations into a "model" which then validates their speculation. In other words, it doesn't test reality -- it tests the model in your head.
Whether or not that model actually applies to reality requires inference. Inference is what we do in real life when making decisions on the ground. It also is the basis of all superstition.
So, basically you're saying, you accept superstition (i.e., the mask inferences) for one reason ("because physics", which is actually a political argument, not a scientific one, because inference) and want to discard it for another (i.e., ivermectin).
Nope, you don't get to play preferences "because physics". The admission must be made that an inference is the opposite of "water tight" and that has to be considered a different class of methodology entirely to an RCT, which actually accounts for reality, rather that superstition, because it tests things that are actually measurable rather than using inference.
This is case and point why science cannot exist without philosophy. Otherwise it's just number games and fantasies, you know, Bayesian logic.
The number of people hanging onto "Masks must do something" despite MOUNTAINS of decent evidence that they do nothing and essentially NO evidence that they do anything with people in the real world is just astonishing. It is dressed up with "Bayesian this" or "stochastic that" but (and I love your "using a hammer to fill a glass" analogy) it is just flat out wrong.
When I was on psychiatry in medical school, we had a patient who was up before dawn every day, went to the window, and as we watched he lifted his hands and the sun rose synchronously. Every Bayesian analysis of the data says that his actions were 100% correlated with the sun rising. This is where so many of these "physics show that in conditions that have never and will never exist with real people in real places, masks might have done some particle reduction" recitations live. They just ignore all of the hundreds of studies that say that this does not apply in real people...which would be exactly the same as ignoring the fact that the sun rose each day after the patient was strapped to his bed.
I have tried to have conversations with these people, but their religious belief in doing whatever it takes to prove that masks work is insuperable. Sad.
Vinay and I have our differences, but to his credit, he has come around from "masks could be bioplausible" to "clearly they do not work and the evidence is overwhelming". Anyone who will abandon their medical-intervention-as-religion approach when given evidence is a really, really good doctor. Kudos to him. This article is spot on.
Dr. K - I just had major abdominal surgery and I cannot tell you how glad I was that - literally this past Monday - the mask mandate in the system I had surgery in had been lifted. Nurses and docs cheerfully entered my room sans masks and we chatted about my successful outcome and progress, no masks, no fear. It almost felt good! 😉. Happy to say I’m home now and continuing my journey