Without examining those other factors, you have no idea how significant they were. And neither did whomever did the analysis of masks vs. cases. You like the conclusions stated, so you accept them without question. In that regard, how is your position and different than my opposing position? And to be clear, I am not dismissing the study, I am criticizing the methodology.
Your kitchen sink criticism is ridiculous. Do you really think it probable that the no mask mandate schools had a bunch of visitors carrying Covid and the mask mandate schools did not? Considering you need to see that abominably through hundreds of schools the probability is vanishingly thin.
Yes. But all real world studies have variables that are uncontrolled. Heck, most lab experiments have variables that are uncontrolled. Your criticism would apply to any and all studies and experiments.
Why is your opinion of this “study” any more valid than mine? You are presuming other factors don’t matter so the study is valid, while I am saying other factors were not incorporated into the study, therefore, we don’t know if the study is valid. The fact of the matter is, all they did was count up numbers, compare them to each other, and present the results of their comparison.
Did they consider the average humidity difference between schools? Did they check if the mandate schools had more illegals aliens with Covid entering the schools? Did a school have a popular teacher that wore his mask poorly? Did some schools dissect rats that were Covid positive?
Why didn’t they include these factors? How can we know anything unless ALL possible factors are considered in the study?
When it comes to political bias, objectivity typically goes out the window. The choice of source material is by its nature very subjective, when it comes to politics.
You’re getting unnecessarily wroght over the details. It was not my intent to upset you. I’m just pointing out the limitations of the study. Their conclusions may be entirely correct, but the study does not prove it.
I’m totally fine so you can stop worrying. Al studies have limitations. No studies PROVE anything, all they can do is give us some degree of confidence (not the math term here) that the conclusions are correct.
In its face, the study points to a specific conclusion. Nothing in the list of possible objections have me heartburn but I’d be happy to go through each of them with you and explain my thinking if you like. They might if the sample size was much smaller but at 999 schools it starts to become improbable that public events would happen to occur with a significant number of mandate schools versus non-mandate schools. If the sample size were 6, then it would be a concern.
Take a simple experiment. Does mass change when ice melts. Put some ice in a container, melt it, then measure the mass. Do it a hundred times or so. With a balance that is sensitive to 0.01 g, nearly all of the results will be within the uncertainty of the measurements. Try with other samples of matter and other changes in matter. Same result. That does not prove that mass is conserved. But our confidence increases with both larger sample size and more sensitive instruments. To date, I know of no violation of the law of conservation of mass. But that doesn’t mean it will someday be found to have limitations.
So here’s an interesting experiment. Say you have an equal-arm balance with two pieces of metal on each pan. The arm is horizontal and the masses are equal. Suppose you could heat the piece of metal on the left hand arm. Would the balance remain horizontal, would it tip to the heated piece, or would it tip to the unheated piece? Just give me your off-the-cuff response.
I think it would tip toward the heated end. I’m thinking along the lines that the heat causes the metal to expand changing the length of the heated side. This would shift the weight farther out and upset the equilibrium.
The mass doesn’t change, but the leaver arm(?) does.
Only in respect that we were the county seat. My elementary school backed up to a corn field, and my street went from the fair grounds east for 4 blocks and the. Ended in the corn. We had two banks, an A&P. Two pharmacies and a clinic.
But yeah. Half of us were city folk, the other half farmers.
Thanks for playing. You got it right but think for the wrong reason. I was given this problem, and got it wrong. I gave the problem to a 9-year-old “genius” kid. He got it right for the right reason. The heated metal gains mass. It is a relativistic situation. As particles gain heat, they move faster, which increases their mass. Mass is proportional to energy. E=mc2 . c is the proportionality constant.
