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That is what I said. WE are told to use antibacterial soap against the virus when ordinary soaps does as much or more. Soap being antibacterial does nothing to make it more effective against viruses. Likewise most antibacterial cleaners do not kill viruses. Yet we run around spraying antibacterial cleaners on everything and anything (hard surfaces anyway)
However you are correct, that is the trees not the forest. The point is science has been turned into nothing but PC idiocy with no logic, no reasoning and no real science involved at all. The slightest statistical trend is taken as definitive proof of whatever the PC side of things wants to prove at the moment. And anyone who evens questions the so called "science" is immediately decried as a moron, mocked and silenced.
The fact is some of the "science" might be correct, or it might not. They are guessing, have no real scientific support for their conclusions and are just making stuff up. They are pressed to immediately come up with "scientific" answers so they just support whatever the payers wants without any real scientific analysis and with a peer review process so corrupted that it is meaningless.
Using antibacterial soap too much can lead to bacteria that is resistant to methods to kill it.
Yes, you are correct. Additional evidence came to the fore concerning a novel virus creating a pandemic. Scientific viewpoints changed accordingly. This is a very common dynamic. People died making early aircraft, at the hands of electricity, and exploring the oceans. But because of scientific inquiry the human species is no longer relegated to living in caves and being warmed by campfires.
Your generalizations are not helpful in answering some basic questions concerning the sudden change in virus, science, statistics, physics, and virology. What specifically changed to invalidate previous studies? "Novel" virus or not, the physical size of the virus did not change. The interweave gap of cloth did not change suddenly. Again, how do you explain that a cloth mask that didn't work on viruses in general suddenly started working on this particular virus when the dynamics are the same? What is it specifically that changed last April?
Is this "novel" virus afraid of cloth? Is cloth suddenly a one-way barrier to viruses? Viruses gained weight? cloth weave tightened a hundredfold?
I can tell you what changed: politics. This entire situation has been commandeered by politics. And because of that, nobody in any position of power can be trusted, unfortunately.
There will come a time that, all of a sudden, masks don't work again. That will happen when it is advantageous politically. Suddenly, studies will start indicating just the opposite of what they indicated previously, just as current studies suddenly started indicating just the opposite of what they did at the beginning of last year.
But right now, any truthful study on the matter is being buried or skewered. The few that have been published have been immediately attacked by the news media. THAT alone is a warning sign. When the news media attacks something... there is more often than not a lot of truth to that something.
Science always leaves out the possibility of chance. They are all measured. Everything. For example during the pandemic, did you notice yourself getting a little lighter in color skin. Science tells us, that if we monitor our sun exposure we will actually get considerably lighter in color skin. True. So staying home and the pandemic can have a significant affect on yourself. You are either a day person or an indoor person. Which one are you? I think the pandemic has brought all this up. The stay home rule for example. Just stay home and indoors is the way to go. It really does matter.
Unfortunately, people want simple, black and white answers...and they want them NOW. Nature isn't simple and people aren't simple. Science is a method of study to find out why things are the way they are - it's rare to take a guess and be 100% right, and that's why scientific "facts" change over time.
They were not really facts to begin with...science is always honing and refining the current "answers" to get them closer to 100% but will we ever get there? I dunno - but it's a helluva lot better than saying "if you're not 100% right, and if this solution isn't 100% safe, I won't believe it and I won't use it". The best thing about science is that it DOES change - it acknowledges it's not correct when someone finds a better answer rather than clinging to something less correct or less accurate. I know, people don't like things to change...it means they were "wrong", well, things are "righter" now than they were yesterday.
Now, the media does a crummy job conveying the complexities of science - sometimes oversimplifying to help us understand it but sometimes to make it more "punchy" and fun and exciting and clickable. And public policy is always a step removed from science and has to be concerned about how to practically implement something that will no doubt not be perfect. So yeah, we don't live in a perfect world with perfect knowledge and a perfect way to make stuff happen. That's life...grow up and deal with it.
People tend to forget that scientists are just people too. They can be just as greedy and just as much of a liar as the rest of us.
Also, people that tend to throw around the term 'science deniers' aren't even scientists,. . .so how do they expect anyone to believe that they actually understand the 'science' behind any of it? It's an example of the 'Appeal to Authority' Logical Fallacy.
Yes, that is all true. But scientific research is also difficult to do, and to interpret. Very often scientists think their research has demonstrated something when it really hasn't. Peer review can help, but doesn't solve everything.
Science-worshipers insist that science is self-correcting, and wrong ideas don't survive. Actually, wrong ideas can survive quite well for a very long time. Especially when they become the consensus, and everyone working in the field must go along or lose their job.
Even scientists don't always agree amongst themselves.
So I'd turn it around and ask what's wrong with people who blindly accepted what certain scientists say about certain subjects but then won't listen to alternative theories from others?
Also, why do some people apparently believe that scientists are infallible and completely without bias or personal agendas?
Science has been corrupted by money and politics. It has been for a long time. I remember when tobacco companies found scientists to say cigarette smoking didn't cause cancer. They kept that up for years.
When it comes to accepting science, one of the essentials is for a person has to be able think logically and without bias. A person then examines the evidence and comes to conclusions. So, do masks help reduce the spread of covid-19? The evidence says yes, both the statistical evidence, as well as other empirical evidence. The same can be said of social distancing. The evidence suggests that covid-19 vaccines work with minimal risk.
This is not to say that science gets it right all of the time. There are examples of where scientific findings, and beliefs, proved unfounded. Again, the best that can be done is to go by the evidence. This has worked to stop many diseases in their tracks and extend the human life expectancy many decades. It also has given us the electric light and air travel, to name two of thousands of non-medical scientific advancements.
You don't understand what science is. No matter how logical and unbiased a person is, simply looking at the evidence will not give a simple answer. Maybe that's what they teach in public school, but the reality is much more complicated and difficult.
And electric light, air travel, computers, etc., were given to us by technology, which is not really the same thing as science. The Wright brothers, and Edison, were engineers and inventors, not scientists.
And medical science has not stopped many diseases. Diseases that can be cured with antibiotics or surgery have been stopped, but most diseases are still not curable. Life expectancy increased mostly because of antibiotics, and better sanitation and nutrition. And mostly because babies and children seldom die now, which greatly increased the average life span.
Many people are confused by the same things you are confused by. They think "Science" gave us all those things, and therefore we should believe whatever scientific or medical authorities tell us.
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