The Scientific Method, the Easiest Way to Follow the Science

A few days ago my wife said to me that she is not surprised that people are so confused about Covid.  Most people just don’t understand science well enough to make up their own mind so they defer to the authorities.  My response to my wife was that you don’t have to understand science you just have to understand the scientific method.

Everyone takes 12 years of science in public school.  I will admit that science is not one of the most popular classes although I really don’t understand why not.  I guess that shows you just how big a nerd I am.  In 12 years teachers try to impart as much knowledge as they can yet they fail when it comes to teaching the only important concept.  The scientific method.

If you failed every science class that you took but at least understand the scientific method in my book your teachers should count that as a win.  The scientific method is really just a method of problem solving.  It is just a series of steps to take to prove a point or solve a problem.  The steps are

1. observe phenomenon or problem
2. develop a theory of what is causing or how to handle the problem
3. collect data or design an experiment to test your theory
4. If the data or experiment does not support the theory go back to step 2 and start over with a new or modified theory.

Leaving decisions up to the experts is easy.  You don’t have to understand the science you just need to watch them and make sure they are following the scientific method.  If they are, great go ahead and trust what they say.  If they are not, don’t listen to them they are a dangerous or deceitful lunatics.

Let’s do a couple of quick covid examples to show you how easy this is.

1. You observe that people are testing positive for Covid
2. The theory is that masks can prevent transmission
3. You force everyone to wear a mask as an experiment. And here are the results.

So we are now at step 4.  We have proven that masks cannot prevent people from becoming ill so we need to abandon or modify our hypothesis.  The Hypothesis is changed to masks lowering the number of people who get ill.  To test this new hypothesis we need to perform an experiment where some people wear masks and some people don’t.  Then we can compare the 2 groups.

The state of Arizona accidentally performed that experiment for us.  In Arizona some counties had mask mandates while other counties did not.  Here are the results.

The counties that used masks had more infections although not enough more to say that masks are increasing infections.  One thing is certain.  Masks made no difference, so the hypothesis that masks make transmission less likely is false.

Anyone using the scientific method would have abandoned masks after getting this data.  Do you remember Nenshi or Kenney dropping their mask mandates?  Yeah me neither.  Anyone advocating for masks right now is not using the scientific method.  If they are not using the scientific method they are not “following the science”.  They are not scientists or experts.  The mask Nazis are dangerous lunatics that should not be followed.

We could do this same thought exercise for Lockdowns and we would arrive at the same conclusion.  There is no evidence to support that lockdowns impede the spread of the virus.  You do not have to understand science well enough to read the 23 scientific papers that concluded lockdowns don’t work.  All they did was this same simple process and explain it with very large words.

Anyone who says that masks or lockdowns work is either stupid or lying.  They might even be both.  We don’t need to listen to them and we don’t need to be scientists to follow the science.