[onecommentman]

“Interviewing 700 epidemiologists is a fool's errand providing no useful information.”

Do you seriously believe there is “no useful information” from such an exercise? None? Methinks you are being facetious.

I agree you shouldn’t necessarily follow what they say they do, but even realizing there is a diversity of responses among those who have some formal training is surely of some value. Especially among the target audience of the NYT that tends to believe what an authority tells them more than the average American.