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Comment by jgwil2 | Hacker News Reader

Absent any scientific evidence, it's a rather extraordinary claim. There had been no human flight throughout human history until ~100 years ago, yet GP did not have any fear about flying with his family.

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I suspect we will never run this through a controlled scientific experiment and thus will never 'know' what could be the long-term effects of partially hiding human faces from children, because very few people would sign up their children for such an experiment.

(And I would urge any intellectually curious people who are also laser-focused on empiricism as the only valid way to acquire knowledge, to instead apply rational thought to the question. Why don't we have any scientific evidence on the matter?)

> Why don't we have any scientific evidence on the matter?

Because it would be too cruel of an experiment to run.

But is it not too cruel to impose it on population by force, without even any experiment?

We also have no good scientific evidence on whether parachutes are effective. You can't knowingly run an experiment that could cause harm to the participants.

You can’t, in the “not allowed to” sense of the word. However, you sure are able to run such experiments, and for many of them, you will find plenty of volunteers too. However, the modern science establishment still won’t allow you to run such experiment, because it is “””unethical”””. Of course, governments are not bound by any of that stuff, and will mandate all kinds of shit that would be unethical to do in the course of experimental science. As a result, because scientists are not allowed to experiment on fully informed and consenting volunteers, governments run their own experiments on their subjects that they never asked for opinion or offered right to refuse.

RCTs, by definition, can cause harm to either arm of the trial (depending on whether the intervention is harmful or beneficial). We routinely accept that as the cost of advancing knowledge and avoiding interventions that would do more harm than good.

> apply rational thought to the question.

Okay, I'll give that a try: the benefits of wearing masks in public during a pandemic are known, whereas any harm that might be caused by occasionally exposing children to the sight of partially covered human faces is unknown. Therefore, to minimize harm, we should favour masking.

This does not follow - your previous statements do not provide any evidence that masking is the choice that minimizes harm, unknown harm definitely does not mean no harm, it may be smaller or larger than the benefit. In order to make any statement whatsoever about whether the benefit outweighs the (unknown) harm, there needs to be at least some attempt to make a reasonable estimation on how large (or small) that harm is.

Ignoring it essentially means making a strong assumption that the harm is absolutely insignificant, but is that really the best informed guess specialists can make?

We are fairly certain that the real-world use of cloth masks and face coverings can only supply limited benefit, so the threshold for harm to make them not worth it may not be that high [0]. You can support wearing masks for adults in motor vehicle agencies (limited harm, limited benefit) and still realize that young children in daycare should not be required to be masked all day (potentially high developmental harm, limited benefit).

"In summary, though we support mask wearing by the general public, we continue to conclude that cloth masks and face coverings are likely to have limited impact on lowering COVID-19 transmission, because they have minimal ability to prevent the emission of small particles, offer limited personal protection with respect to small particle inhalation, and should not be recommended as a replacement for physical distancing or reducing time in enclosed spaces with many potentially infectious people."

[0] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commenta...

My original comment suggested simply that the claim that wearing masks around children would harm them requires evidence. But the comment I was responding to here made the claim that the harm caused by masking in front of children is unknowable. I submit that if a harm is truly unknowable then we may as well treat it as no harm, since in this case common sense tells us that children are adaptable and resilient. But please, if you have a reasonable estimation, do share.

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