From what I've seen, they never lied about needing a mask. The early pandemic CBS interview with Fouci says wearing a mask is fine, but unnecessary for most people and would take masks from those who really need it. There was also a larger emphasis on sanitizing surfaces and avoiding face touching. This is because sars-cov-2 is more effective spreading infections as an airborn virus than expected. Once evidence showed otherwise, masking was recommended.
The lab leak theory shows a problem with human thought and why scientific methods are valuable. People focus on what's true, instead of eliminating what's impossible. To say the lab leak theory is a possibility is reasonable. However to say it might have spread to humans through another medium (eg, meat market) is also reasonable. To try and put any sort of probability between the two reasonable possibilities is a pointless endeavor. China is likely the only one with good enough evidence to say either way, and China isn't telling anyone else. Though even that doesn't say anything, because either way they wouldn't tell anyone else.
Big gatherings are bad, but the right to fight against tyranny is more important than the badness of the big gatherings. That is the context in which experts are not condoning BLM protests.
The problem is it's really hard to tell between a carefully considered expert opinion, and just someone talking out of their ass. It's also an evolving situation, with even experts trying to work with slow to come data. It's reasonable to say that people should focus on directing others to experts, and not and try to reinterpret or make predictions of their own.
2. Lab Leak: I remember you basically couldn't even bring up the lab leak theory here on HN a year ago. I'm not going to be gaslighted in to thinking that the debate between "lab leak" and "meat market" was just people debating probabilities. No. If you brought up "lab leak" you were dismissed as an unscientific racist. That didn't happen with the meat market theory.
> It's reasonable to say that people should focus on directing others to experts, and not and try to reinterpret or make predictions of their own.
Sure, that's perfectly reasonable to say. But that isn't the issue. The issue is forcing people who do voice their own skepticism out of public discourse, when even the main stream media can't agree week to week.
The lab leak theory shows a problem with human thought and why scientific methods are valuable. People focus on what's true, instead of eliminating what's impossible. To say the lab leak theory is a possibility is reasonable. However to say it might have spread to humans through another medium (eg, meat market) is also reasonable. To try and put any sort of probability between the two reasonable possibilities is a pointless endeavor. China is likely the only one with good enough evidence to say either way, and China isn't telling anyone else. Though even that doesn't say anything, because either way they wouldn't tell anyone else.
Big gatherings are bad, but the right to fight against tyranny is more important than the badness of the big gatherings. That is the context in which experts are not condoning BLM protests.
The problem is it's really hard to tell between a carefully considered expert opinion, and just someone talking out of their ass. It's also an evolving situation, with even experts trying to work with slow to come data. It's reasonable to say that people should focus on directing others to experts, and not and try to reinterpret or make predictions of their own.