Hacker News Reader

Comment by YinglingLight | Hacker News Reader

Western Civilization would not have made it to where it is today without the Scientific Method. Full Stop.

Science™, as it exists today, is a deified Organization, filling the vacuum of religion in the secular West.

Corruption grows under the guise of purity. Be it the Catholic Church, be it Sumo Wrestling. What sentence spoke to the HNer's ear is more unquestionably swallowed than one prefaced with "Scientists report..." ? As if Scientists don't have mortgages to pay. As if funding was entirely detached from motives. Full throated acceptance.

View on HN

All sounds a bit left-field until you hear Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the (UK) Royal Society, describe randomised controlled trials of masks as “methodological fetishism”.

I await the result of Thomas Benfield's (Copenhagen) study on the same with interest.

That quote probably comes with some context. While I'm generally in favor of rigorous testing of all hypotheses, sometimes you have to make decisions before those tests can be completed. (It is worth running the tests in the meantime, though.)

In that case, if the context is what I think: it is methodological fetishism to assume masks are useless until proven otherwise, because the cost is very little, the potential benefit is rather high, and the probability of benefit seems like "at least 10%". And I think certain health authorities were indeed making that assumption early on (though some have said they were simply lying because they thought that would produce the behavior they wanted).

You point is well-taken, but the assumption that masks are useless or dangerous until proven otherwise is simply the well-established precautionary principle. Why dangerous? I travel on the London underground regularly, masks are mandatory but that is not universally observed; a large number of those with masks are constantly adjusting them, touching their faces, then touching the seats and the hand-rails. Those without generally don't touch their faces. Which behaviour is more harmful? I don't know, and until we get some hard numbers of the actual effects of real people's behaviour (rather than hamster-in-a-box studies), nor does anyone else.

> Science™, as it exists today, is a deified Organization, filling the vacuum of religion in the secular West.

I don't really agree here. I can see the argument that most fields are so advanced that people need to have "faith" in scientific leadership because they can't hope to achieve a deep understanding of most fields of science. At least that trust is given to a group who is ostensibly equipped to refute false or misleading findings via the scientific method.

But that's not replacing the role of religion, which is more political, social, & ethical in nature. I'd argue political systems have displaced religion in most of the West.

Also, shouldn't your username be YuenglingLight

There's a discussion to be had about "scientism", but this isn't it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com