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The Great Debunkening

Looks like the science is finally settled.

I’m pro-science. That’s why I’m anti-mask

The landmark Cochrane study shows that the mask skeptics were right

I believe in the scientific method: make an observation. Ask a question. Form a hypothesis. Test the hypothesis. Listen to the answer. Insisting on the answer before pursuing this methodological approach is not science, it is propaganda.

And “masks work” was never more than propaganda — rooted in mechanical plausibility, not actual science — furthered by public health officials, left-leaning government leaders, the press and the party faithful starting in 2020 and continuing to the present day.

The left is holding fast to the idea that masks do work, despite all the evidence to the contrary. In fact, as of February 6, mask mandates have been reinstated at four elementary schools in Marin County, California.

Will there be redemption for those who had the audacity to challenge authoritarian public health bureaucrats? No, it seems. Will there be a change in policy now that the science is clear? Again, no, it seems.

Will there be a doubling down, with the self-proclaimed pro-“science” crowd continuing to insist masking works despite the scientific evidence showing us that they don’t? Yes. It appears so.

What seems clear is that the enthusiastic, religious devotion to the dogma — “masks work” — signified adherence to a set of beliefs: I mask therefore I am good. I mask my children therefore I am loyal to the Democratic Party and public health diktats. I mask therefore I care. I am a loyal follower of “the Science.” My faith is unwavering.

Those who claim to be on the side of “the Science” will continue to push unscientific policies in order to prove that they were right all along. This is the sunk cost fallacy writ large. Don’t admit mistakes. Ignore the actual science in favor of “the Science.” And continue to punish those who challenge. As well as those most vulnerable who simply aren’t in a position to challenge at all.

“Science” has apparently been rebranded by the left. It is now a slogan — a tagline — shouted at heretics to signify one’s moral superiority and loyalty to the party. What we have now is “science” that ignores the scientific method, which means “the science” is a cult. And a dangerous one at that.

Yes, it most certainly is. That is neither coincidence nor happenstance.

The larger issue here is that Leftists, having by now promoted their misbegotten ideology on up to de facto religious-cult status, while also being constitutionally incapable of leaving anything under the sun imaginable alone and untampered with, must therefore pretzel actual science into “The Science” in order to bring it into compliance with their contradictory catechism.

They’d adamantly deny there’s any religious-cult aspect to their beliefs, natch, particularly as it applies to the Church of the Eternal Climate Change (formerly Global Warming, formerly Global Cooling, formerly The Weather)™ denomination. But the truth couldn’t be more obvious to any reasonable, thoughtful person.

Which is not to suggest that science and religion are incompatible, mind. It’s just that they’re two very different things, that’s all—distinct modes of thought whose focus is on two separate realms, which we might think of as the practical and the ethereal. Religion is definitionally a matter of faith, and matters of faith are NOT amenable to empirical proof. That built-in contradiction in terms is just another of the myriad reasons why, intellectually speaking, shitlibs can’t help but trip over their own dicks fifty times before lunch every day.

Intellectually speaking.

The aforementioned Cochrane study is here, and says this:

One of the largest and most comprehensive studies on the effectiveness of masks found they do almost nothing to reduce the spread of respiratory viruses.

The study reviewed 78 randomized control trials—experiments that have long been considered “the gold standard” for medicine—which assessed the effectiveness of face masks against flu, COVID-19, and similar illnesses. It found that wearing masks “probably makes little or no difference” for the general public, no matter what kind of mask is used. Even N95 masks, considered the most effective at filtering airborne particles, showed no clear benefit for health care workers.

The study was published on January 30 by the Cochrane Library, a world-renowned medical database that is famous for its high-quality evidence reviews. It comes as a battering ram to the recommendations of the U.S. public health establishment, which urged children as young as two to wear masks throughout the pandemic.

“This amounts to the scientific nail in the coffin for mask mandates,” said Kristen Walsh, a clinical professor of pediatrics in Morristown, New Jersey. “I just can’t wrap my mind around the fact that some schools are still actively forcing children to wear masks, much less children who need to see faces to learn.”

You shouldn’t try; it makes sense only when you recognize that the Scamdemic entire wasn’t really about health or safety, but about the twin pillars of authoritarian tyranny: power and control.

(Via Ed)

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25 thoughts on “The Great Debunkening

  1. “…but about the twin pillars of authoritarian tyranny: power and control.

    Indirectly, yes.

    The real reason for the scam was singular, Stop Donald Trump.

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  2. If you presume they’re lying 100% of the time you’re pretty much guaranteed to be right 99.999% of the time.

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      1. I really can’t think of the time they didn’t, but I suppose it probably happened once.

  3. Sorry, chief, but you’ve been dazzled by shiny bullshit.

    The “Cochrane Study” is meta-analysis.
    If I give you one bullshit invalid study, it’s bullshit.
    If I give you 78 of them, I can call it a meta-analysis.
    Which is much nicer than saying I’ve given you 78 times as much bullshit, and transmogrified it into “Science!”

    You’re going with 78 invalid studies, polling them, and deciding that suddenly all that bullshit equals gold.

    That’s not how science works.

    Meta-analysis was Pope Urban VIII polling 78 official church astronomers, and deciding based on the average of their opinions that the Earth was the center of the solar system.

    Science was Galileo, all by himself, showing that all of them were full of shit.

    The last time someone tried this line, it was 21 invalid masking studies.
    Now they’re trying it with 78.
    I’ve neither the time nor energy to count coup on the flaws in 78 studies, but I’ll bet paychecks, mine against yours, with anyone who thinks I can’t spot the flaw(s) in any study they can pull up, within 5 minutes, that concludes “masks don’t work”.

    The plural of bullshit is not “data”. It’s “meta-analysis”.

    You’ve been had.

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    1. LOL, now show us a study that proves masks work to stop airborne virus transmission to any effective degree. And be sure to understand it will subjected to the same BS content analysis.

      The fact remains, as it always has, no mask manufacturer will tell you it inhibits the transmission of a virus, because it will not. Your lungs do not have the power required to push/pull air through a medium capable of trapping a virus, a virus that is so small it can not be seem through a normal microscope. You would have to wear a properly fitted system and a power pack to do that.

      You cannot change this fact with your belief system.

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      1. Yes but what if you wear three masks? Doesn’t the mesh overlap?
        Asking for a friend an idiot…

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        1. I was thinking about putting up two more chain link fence layers to stop the damn mosquito’s from getting through. You think that will work?
          🙂

      2. Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks | Nature Medicine

        Masks, versus nothing, showed an improvement of viral transmission of between 100X better and 1000x better.

        No b.s.
        Just a straight test.

        Debunk that, or get back on the porch with the small dogs.

        You want me to lay out where any one of those 78 “studies” proved “masks don’t work”?
        No problem; just tell me how much you’re betting, and are prepared to lose, and we can begin.

        1. Surgical face masks significantly reduced detection of influenza virus RNA in respiratory droplets…

          “Reduced” does not mean “below a viral load for transmission”.

          That’s the point, they don’t reduce it enough to have made a single difference anywhere. People wore masks and transmission rates had no response or random responses, meaning other factors made the difference. PLUS, there may have been detection problems.

          for rhinovirus we detected virus in aerosols in 19 of 34 (56%) participants (compared to 4 of 10 (40%) for coronavirus and 8 of 23 (35%) for influenza),

          Meaning viral loads were still delivered and that’s how, in the real world, Masks Don’t Work. Just because a random group showed some lesser presence was because they weren’t present at all in the rest. In other cases the presence was simply reduced randomly. Had they tested repeatedly they could have found that a DIFFERENT set of 19 people (etc) showed virus present.

          The University of Louisville mid 2020 study showed random changes in transmission rates before and after mask mandates in the same location and they did the study using at least 20 different places and using CDC data. Therefore, mask mandates did nothing to explain the changes to any degree. They were random and statistically insignificant.

          If the mask wearing didn’t change transmission rates then they don’t work. The data presented up above explains why. The EXPOSURE to a viral load was caused by the randomness of the people you encountered. If you encountered one of the 19 out of 34 you were potentially exposed and that was totally random. If you came across one of the 15 other people you WEREN’T exposed and had 0 chance of infection. THAT was the variable that mattered, not the Masks.

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        2. Quoting myself:
          LOL, now show us a study that proves masks work to stop airborne virus transmission to any effective degree. 

          You have failed to do that. Your cited study fails to do that. We don’t give a damn if the mask stops droplet viral exposure when the problem is airborne viral exposure. As stated, and it still stands true, masks do not stop the transmission of an airborne virus to any degree worth spit. They very well may make the problem worse.

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          1. Plus “reduced” is meaningless.

            If a 100 missiles are shot at a city and we shoot 50 of them down, the number of missiles hitting that city are “significantly reduced”. Yet, the city is still destroyed.

            Reducing viral loads that DO NOT change transmission rates means the reduction was ineffective in stopping the spread and stopping the spread is the only meaningful result we would want to see.

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        3. I’ll bet a gazillion jillion dollars you can’t “debunk” all 78.

          Betting over the internet makes you sound more of a fool than you are, considering the picture I just posted that says Masks Don’t Work as a warning label right on the box.

          If Masks Worked then Sturgis should have been a Super Spreader event and FL transmission rates should have SOARED after dropping the mask mandates.

          There was no transmission rate differences before and after in the same location or between masked areas and unmasked at any given time.

    2. So 78 studies were done all showing Masks Don’t Work and they were all done with BS methodology to get a predetermined outcome you disagree with. Yet not one counterfactual study can be produced to refute the 78 study’s conclusions. We’re just supposed to take your word for it!!!

      Sciencey!!!

      Forget all those studies, I’m Aesop and I assert with No Evidence they DO WORK! I am Aesop and you must simply BELIEVE IN SCIENCEY!!

      Aesop Epic Fail.

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      1. Here’s your big chance, Kenny. Out of those 78 studies, find so much as one with correct methodology, and valid conclusions.

        I already refuted the predetermined conclusions lacking any validity, with the study cited, years ago.

        Your move, chief.

    3. Actually, Kepler did that before Galileo did, and Copernicus beat him to it by a century or two.

      1. The problem is he has no studies in the spirit of Galileo, Kepler or Copernicus to even present to refute the findings of these studies. He also presents no evidence that they used invalid methodologies.

        We are just supposed to take his word for it that all 78 studies are invalid. He freely admits he hasn’t looked at any but the first 21 and so therefore has no knowledge of how the others are invalid.

        He also presents none of the reasons why he says the first 21 he supposedly did look at were invalid.

        In fact, he presents nothing at all except bullying us into submission to his assertions. I am Aesop and I KNOW ALL and you must just accept my word!

    4. You also ignore the fact that the CDC and Fauci and others all said, prior to the politicization, that Masks Don’t Work.

      I was in HK for SARS (another disease that came from mainland China that they got misnamed as SARS to pretend it came from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region HKSAR) and they also told us Masks Don’t Work.

      So you’re ignoring at least 2 decades of real Science because you won’t admit you were irrationally fearful because government and “Experts” commanded you to be.

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      1. You keep confusing masking with masks.
        The two are not interchangeable.
        See if you can figure out why.

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        1. Why don’t you tell us the name of any mask manufacturer that claims a reduction in virus transmission for their mask.

          I know you can’t, you know you can’t, end of story.

        2. Because Masks Don’t Work if Masking doesn’t work.

          Masking is the verb that says you wore a Mask. If wearing a mask didn’t work the act of wearing a mask doesn’t work and hence masks don’t work.

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