Masks in the Mountains

Colorado peak questions, condition requests and other info.
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Will you wear a mask on your next 14er ascent?

Yes. I will wear 2 masks until told otherwise.
3
2%
Yes. My mask shows that I care for your health.
13
8%
Yes. I don't know up from down, but it is important to signal virtue.
3
2%
Maybe, depends on what the person in front of me is doing.
14
8%
No. My face is too pretty to hide.
12
7%
No. The mask thing is so 2020.
6
3%
No. I read the science and masks outside are absurd.
111
64%
No. I voted for Trump and I don't think he would approve.
11
6%
 
Total votes: 173
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Dave B
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by Dave B »

crossfitter wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:45 am
It doesn't take a genius to see an obvious seasonal trend to the data. How exactly is it that we have come to believe that our interventions have been responsible, rather than seasonal trends which have been well recognized as a major factor in respiratory illnesses for eons?
A seasonal trend needs to have an underlying mechanism. In this case, cold weather drives people indoors in closer proximity. Masks would limit (key is limit not prevent) transmission of aerial diseases, hence the dramatic drop in flu and cold cases. Covid is more virulent than the cold and the flu, however, and still managed to spread despite interventions. But, it is impossible to say that masks had no effect - that is unless you have another replicate earth where no one ever wore masks and you could compare transmission rates, which obviously you don't.

I feel like these are kindergarten levels of nuance that you should understand.
Last edited by Dave B on Tue May 11, 2021 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by BillMiddlebrook »

If Kris starts telling us he’s been reincarnated 500 times and we should all bow to him and supply his beer, he’s outta here!
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by crossfitter »

Dave B wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:53 am
crossfitter wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:45 am
It doesn't take a genius to see an obvious seasonal trend to the data. How exactly is it that we have come to believe that our interventions have been responsible, rather than seasonal trends which have been well recognized as a major factor in respiratory illnesses for eons?
A seasonal trend needs to have an underlying mechanism. In this case, cold weather drives people indoors in closer proximity. Masks would limit (key is limit not prevent) transmission of aerial diseases, hence the dramatic drop in flu and cold cases. Covid is more virulent than the cold and the flu, however, and still managed to spread despite interventions.

I feel like these are kindergarten levels of nuance that you should understand.
If masks work, then why don't they work? Why can I point to a dozen different examples of masks vs no masks that show the same trend? Everywhere you look, regions follow the same seasonal trendline regardless of what interventions they implemented. Here's yet another example.

Image

As best I can tell, there is no falsifiable hypothesis around masks, because people have decreed that they work, because the experts say so. If the virus goes up, it's because people didn't mask hard enough. If virus goes down, it's because people masked hard enough. Anytime I post the closest we can get to a controlled study of masks vs no masks and offer an alternative hypothesis, people like yourself simply ignore it. Not very sciency in my book.
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by Bean »

Dave B wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:09 am You'd be taken more seriously if you could avoid ... cherry picking specific comparisons that support your view point
Dave B wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:33 am And, I get that the study ends before the second wave, but
:-k

Speaking of cherry-picking to get to insane conclusions:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07993.pdf
MIT wrote: Indeed, anti-maskers often reveal themselves to be more sophisticated in their understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed than their ideological adversaries, who espouse naïve realism about the “objective” truth of public health data.
...
For these anti-mask users, their approach to the pandemic is grounded in more scientific rigor, not less.
...
These individuals as a whole are extremely willing to help others who have trouble interpreting graphs with multiple forms of clarification: by helping people find the original sources so that they can replicate the analysis themselves, by referencing other reputable studies
...
Arguing anti-maskers need more scientific literacy is to characterize their approach as uninformed & inexplicably extreme. This study shows the opposite: they are deeply invested in forms of critique & knowledge production they recognize as markers of scientific expertise
...
the skeptical impulse that the 'science simply isn’t settled,' prompting people to simply 'think for themselves” to horrifying ends.
And it goes on to link this sort of independent analysis to white supremacy. The 2/3 of users here who declared they read the science themselves to come to a conclusion should be cautioned against doing so, lest they become white supremacists.
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by Dave B »

crossfitter wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:58 am
Dave B wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:53 am
crossfitter wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:45 am
It doesn't take a genius to see an obvious seasonal trend to the data. How exactly is it that we have come to believe that our interventions have been responsible, rather than seasonal trends which have been well recognized as a major factor in respiratory illnesses for eons?
A seasonal trend needs to have an underlying mechanism. In this case, cold weather drives people indoors in closer proximity. Masks would limit (key is limit not prevent) transmission of aerial diseases, hence the dramatic drop in flu and cold cases. Covid is more virulent than the cold and the flu, however, and still managed to spread despite interventions.

I feel like these are kindergarten levels of nuance that you should understand.
If masks work, then why don't they work? Why can I point to a dozen different examples of masks vs no masks that show the same trend? Everywhere you look, regions follow the same seasonal trendline regardless of what interventions they implemented. Here's yet another example.



As best I can tell, there is no falsifiable hypothesis around masks, because people have decreed that they work, because the experts say so. If the virus goes up, it's because people didn't mask hard enough. If virus goes down, it's because people masked hard enough. Anytime I post the closest we can get to a controlled study of masks vs no masks and offer an alternative hypothesis, people like yourself simply ignore it. Not very sciency in my book.
1. It's not masks versus not masks - it's a continuum in compliance. Without quantification of mask compliance in your comparison, you're just guessing at causal effects. Not very sciency in my book.
2. Cherry picking a set of places that confirm your bias isn't a controlled study, the study I presented was statistically controlled as well as they can be, and you ignored it. Not very sciency in my book.
3. There are a lot of issues that go into transmission, not just masks. Ignoring all confounding factors and myopically focusing on masks is, not very sciency in my book.
4. Masks are very much known to reduce disease transmission, that's why they wear them in ER/OR. The physics are pretty easy to understand, the *reduce* the spread of aerosol droplets. Ignoring this simple fact is not very sciency in my book.

And *my* book is the only one that matters.
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by Dave B »

Bean wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 12:02 pm
Dave B wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:09 am You'd be taken more seriously if you could avoid ... cherry picking specific comparisons that support your view point
Dave B wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:33 am And, I get that the study ends before the second wave, but
:-k

Speaking of cherry-picking to get to insane conclusions:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07993.pdf
MIT wrote: Indeed, anti-maskers often reveal themselves to be more sophisticated in their understanding of how scientific knowledge is socially constructed than their ideological adversaries, who espouse naïve realism about the “objective” truth of public health data.
...
For these anti-mask users, their approach to the pandemic is grounded in more scientific rigor, not less.
...
These individuals as a whole are extremely willing to help others who have trouble interpreting graphs with multiple forms of clarification: by helping people find the original sources so that they can replicate the analysis themselves, by referencing other reputable studies
...
Arguing anti-maskers need more scientific literacy is to characterize their approach as uninformed & inexplicably extreme. This study shows the opposite: they are deeply invested in forms of critique & knowledge production they recognize as markers of scientific expertise
...
the skeptical impulse that the 'science simply isn’t settled,' prompting people to simply 'think for themselves” to horrifying ends.
And it goes on to link this sort of independent analysis to white supremacy. The 2/3 of users here who declared they read the science themselves to come to a conclusion should be cautioned against doing so, lest they become white supremacists.
Yup, that is some off the wall writing, which is probably why it's on arXiv and not in an actual journal. This also has zero impact on the actual effectiveness of masks.
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by AlexeyD »

crossfitter wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:52 amThe spanish inquisition approves of silencing the heretic Galileo.
Lol, it's not a real science debate 'til someone compares themselves to Galileo!

Carry on boys and girls..
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by crossfitter »

Dave B wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 12:05 pm
1. It's not masks versus not masks - it's a continuum in compliance. Without quantification of mask compliance in your comparison, you're just guessing at causal effects. Not very sciency in my book.
2. Cherry picking a set of places that confirm your bias isn't a controlled study, the study I presented was statistically controlled as well as they can be, and you ignored it. Not very sciency in my book.
3. There are a lot of issues that go into transmission, not just masks. Ignoring all confounding factors and myopically focusing on masks is, not very sciency in my book.
4. Masks are very much known to reduce disease transmission, that's why they wear them in ER/OR. The physics are pretty easy to understand, the *reduce* the spread of aerosol droplets. Ignoring this simple fact is not very sciency in my book.

And *my* book is the only one that matters.
I don't need to cherry pick any particular places. I can replicate those results all over the world, I just choose the particular countries because they are well-known and it proves my point. I challenge you to produce any results that refute my main thesis. Your Italy paper is bunk because it fails to explain the precipitous rise shortly after the study ends, and doesn't offer a control of no masks. It doesn't control against the seasonal effects that are well-known to be significant for virus transmission. I'm not cherry picking, it's just a bad cherry-picked paper.

Funny how when interventions don't work it's because there are a confounding number of factors, but when interventions do "work", it can be mostly attributed to masks. Please explain this logic.

Here's a study from 1981 showing that masks actually don't make a difference in the ER/OR environment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... 9-0009.pdf

The idea behind surgical masks is to reduce the odds of bacteria-laden droplets and FOD from falling into giant gaping open wounds. It is a massive leap in logic to abstract this effect to preventing the transmission of aerosolized virus particles. I don't think anyone disputes that masks reduce droplets, I just dispute that it actually matters in the real world. You've made the leap in logic that reducing droplets results in a reduction in transmission and the real world data just doesn't support that claim.

There is in fact a word specifically created to describe abstracting logical principles to "prove" a hypothesis without actually measuring anything or conducting a controlled experiment: pseudoscience.
- A mountain is not a checkbox to be ticked
- Alpinism and mountaineering are not restricted to 14,000 foot mountains
- Judgment and experience are the two most important pieces of gear you own
- Being honest to yourself and others about your abilities is a characteristic of experienced climbers
- Courage cannot be bought at REI or carried with you in your rucksack

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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by rijaca »

Somewhat of a Prick wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:36 am
I'd be fired if I didn't have a mask on. Actually, security wouldn't let me in the building. Fully vaccinated, doesn't matter. Science!
Sounds like the job I had at Rocky Flats.
Last edited by rijaca on Tue May 11, 2021 12:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by benmangelsdorf »

AlexeyD wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 12:09 pm
crossfitter wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 11:52 amThe spanish inquisition approves of silencing the heretic Galileo.
Lol, it's not a real science debate 'til someone compares themselves to Galileo!

Carry on boys and girls..
:lol:
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by rijaca »

crossfitter wrote: Tue May 11, 2021 12:14 pm
Here's a study from 1981 showing that masks actually don't make a difference in the ER/OR environment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl ... 9-0009.pdf

The idea behind surgical masks is to reduce the odds of bacteria-laden droplets and FOD from falling into giant gaping open wounds. It is a massive leap in logic to abstract this effect to preventing the transmission of aerosolized virus particles. I don't think anyone disputes that masks reduce droplets, I just dispute that it actually matters in the real world. You've made the leap in logic that reducing droplets results in a reduction in transmission and the real world data just doesn't support that claim.

There is in fact a word specifically created to describe abstracting logical principles to "prove" a hypothesis without actually measuring anything or conducting a controlled experiment: pseudoscience.
Here's an article from 2008 to consider...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/
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Re: Masks in the Mountains

Post by two lunches »

i'm just here to say i get confused when you guys change your avatars. lookin at you, rob and ricky.

carry on with your pedantry.
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