[xenophonf]

Scientific knowledge is _always_ wrong in a strict sense. Every law, every theory has a confidence interval attached. Every measurement, an error bar. Sometimes that confidence interval is really, really big, like our model of how gravity works when things aren't too big or moving too fast. Sometimes those error bars are really, really big, like how we though non-HEPA masks wouldn't really help prevent the spread of a novel airborne virus, so more conservative pandemic mitigations were necessary to prevent unnecessary deaths. The good news is that the scientific process emphasizes and incentivizes increasing those confidence intervals and reducing errors (but never eliminating them—that's impossible). We know a lot more now than we did this time last year. It's why we have not just one but several safe and effective vaccines, for example.

[passivate]

> It's why we have not just one but several safe and effective vaccines, for example.

Well, if I were to follow your skeptical line of thinking, I'd say that vaccines are never safe/effective, they simply have a confidence interval attached to them. Furthermore, vaccines made using novel processes have no long term data. Its never this simple :)

You see, we can't really apply such logic to every day decisions. The 'error bar' you referred to is of little benefit here, and also subject to the same skepticism. Its useful when you know a high percentage of the the variables, and all the mechanisms where data can be wrong/insufficient, etc. But you can't know that when you know so little of the pathogen. Its turtles all the way down :)

Also, HEPA masks cannot filter out COVID-19 (~ 100nm). HEPA filters, or sterile filters in general are roughly around 0.2um (200nm).

(source: works in biotech on vaccines)

[drdeca]

“Safe” and “known to be safe” aren’t the same thing.

Something can both not cause problems, but also be such that one cannot yet rule out with high confidence that it might.

[passivate]

Agreed. I'm for healthy skepticism, not paranoia. But like everyone else I do have my preferences and biases. Given a choice, I'd much rather take a vaccine based on established 'boring' tech.

[drdeca]

Oh, yes, I agree that for two different vaccines for the same illness, one of which was developed using novel methods / is of a novel style, and where the two different vaccines have individually been tested the same amount with equivalent results regarding safety and effectiveness, it usually makes sense to prefer the one which is of a style which has been tested more thoroughly.

Like, it probably makes sense to trust glass or ceramic glasses somewhat more than plastic or metal glasses, just by how long the technologies have been around?

I think I hadn't read all of your previous comment, and was largely responding to just the first part. Whoops?

[xenophonf]

You absolutely can apply that kind of logic to everyday decisions. It's called risk-benefit analysis.

[passivate]

I explained why you can't - Because you don't know what you don't know. An error margin or error rate or error probability or whatever error measure you choose to use, relies on your knowledge of the problem set. This is already known to most researchers. Establishing probabilities such as "life on planet X" or "existence of aliens" etc are problematic for the same reasons. Certainly these are not every-day decisions, but merely to illustrate the point. I suspect we might agree somewhere in the middle - maybe our disagreement is on what constitutes every day decisions?