Originally Posted by Steve Redgwell
Originally Posted by Jordan Smith
One attribute of a credible scientist is that they are very cautious about making claims of fact and truth unless they are 100% sure. The medical “scientists” our governments have put in positions of authority are clearly not all that credible.


I would agree with that in a general sense, but there are situations where immediate action must be taken.

I believe that the medical community was under the gun - from COVID, the public and the government. They were expected to act quickly. A consensus was reached as to what should happen. Initially, there was no vaccine, they didn't know how it was transmitted and had a minimal understanding of COVID-19. They acted according to their training, making modifications as they went.

We don't know who was consulted or what was discussed. We only knew that infectious disease specialists and other individuals were dealing with it. With every pandemic, there is an after action report. There will be lessons learned.

As scientists, the need for expedient action is not mutually exclusive with the need to be cautious in our claims. It’s possible to say something like “we’re not sure yet if masks are beneficial or not, as the empirical evidence is inconclusive, but we believe that XYZ is the best path forward, so we’ll start with that. We reserve the right to change our conclusion as more data becomes available”. Instead we got something more like: “masks are ineffective”, then “no wait, they are effective”, and so on. This is not how a credible scientist approaches claims of truth and fact.