 Hold what explain your sneeze I'm sorry. Do you have allergies? No, is there too much pepper on your salad? I don't put pepper on salads I've heard enough sit over there I don't want to sit by myself. That's what typhoid Mary said and clearly her friends buckled I have a really interesting interview coming up with dr. Dan Wilson interesting to me because going into this I Thought it was going to be a hardcore discussion about COVID-19 mask science and What it really turned it to maybe is just a discussion of how far the science cow has left the barn. I Would say that when it comes to mask use, you know, there are General principles that we can pull from the literature and we know from a laboratory setting that face masks were Reduced the number of infectious bioparticles that escape from the nose and mouth into the environment that is perfectly logical I have to interject. I know you're making sure there's a remark, but I kind of nailed that I mean who cares that doesn't just we get and the fact that it gets repeated over and over again Like you just did with some kind of mantra mesmerizing thing. It's science bullshit It doesn't have anything to do with answering the question. Am I safer wearing a mask? It doesn't answer that because it doesn't relate to how it works with other humans. It's just it's science bullshit Well, I would disagree. I think it's a really important part of the puzzle You know, like we said at the beginning It's important to see whether or not something works in the lab setting and that's usually the first thing that Scientists do before going and testing it further with more No one had any doubt whether it would work. It's home ice No one had any doubt that if I put if I do that it it does the same thing if I cover my mouth when I cough Stuff doesn't come out to elevate it to this level of advanced refined science to say that if you cover somebody's mouth They stuff doesn't come out of it when they sneeze is a total head fake bullshit way of kind of Wrapping all this nonsense in science the the conclusion is it was inconclusive the conclusion is at last year's Superbowl when the chiefs one no one had to wear a mask because no one was told to wear a mask because that's what the best science said And there hasn't been a wave of science that would change that Welcome to skeptico where we explore controversial science and spirituality with leading researchers thinkers and their critics Boy, oh boy, I have a good one today Really been looking forward to this Dr. Dan Wilson Debunk the funk with Dr. Wilson is his YouTube channel. He is joining us today to have a COVID-19 mask science Throwdown knockdown drag out Dan is a PhD in molecular biology from Carnegie Mellon Translate as he's really really smart. I You will find that he is really This means I took a particular path and spent a lot of time doing it so No, you know, I mean, let's let's be you know for real because it is important We're gonna have a scientific discussion one of the things, you know, you kind of pride yourself on which is great is being a Science, you know, you're a science professional, but you're also a fan of science and advocate for science. You're interested in Debunking to the extent that you want to get to the bottom of what's real and what isn't real and hey That's where I'm at too and even though we might come to different conclusions. We share that which I think is What it's really all about Yeah So I'm showing here your Your YouTube channel and as folks can see you've done a lot of videos on COVID-19 Lot of people on there we're gonna talk about in a minute, but why don't we start by just you know Kind of the basics tell us a little bit more about your background about Share as much as you want about what you do But in particular why you created this YouTube channel and why you felt the need to publish so many videos on COVID-19 Yeah, so as you said, I earned my PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. I earned it just last year actually and You know, I always have been interested in Skeptical topics such as pseudoscience paranormal conspiracy theories all that kind of things. I've been interested in it from a very young age and so It's always been something I would read about You know watched YouTube videos about I kind of had My own little research forays into all these different topics And so when I was getting to towards the end of my PhD, I thought, you know, what do I really want to do with my degree? Do I really want to sit at a lab bench and try to feel like I'm being Try to really feel like I'm contributing to this society by doing these really niche Special projects that it's hard to see the grander Contra grander benefits from And maybe you want to interject a little bit on your desert dissertation, which I did not understand Oh, but we'll give people a sense for how much we don't know about what you know and do kind of on it. Sure Sure. Yeah, so for my PhD work. I investigated how cells build the a little nanomachine in the called ribosomes. So if you remember from biology class Proteins get made by ribosomes But ribosomes themselves are made up of protein and RNA and they're actually really complicated Structures and the cell has to build them. So It has mechanisms to do that which are very You could spend obviously a whole dissertation on it and only really focus on one protein out of Hundreds involved in the process of making ribosomes. And so that's what I did. I focused on How the role that two particular proteins have in actually building the ribosome? And so, you know, it's it's basic biology It's stuff that contributes to our general understanding of how the molecular world works and the hope is that one day that basic knowledge can help contribute to a Medication or some kind of understanding for a treatment for a disease but you know when I'm working at a To further the point I started talking about just a little bit ago It's hard to see, you know 10 20 years 10 20 or so even more years down the line and say work I'm doing now is definitely gonna have an impact later. It's it's definitely important, but it takes a certain personality to really Be okay be okay with just that kind of work, you know, so not everyone is fulfilled by That kind of Hope of distant gratification even though you know your work is important it it can still be Hard to get all the film that you want out of that if that makes sense sure so and that's what kind of led you to do more to kind of a publicly relatable kind of YouTube channel Yeah, so I always was interested in science communication is something I explored during my PhD And that's where I really Got fulfillment is by communicating science to people whether it's teaching in a classroom or You know understanding how people misunderstand science and trying to Help them understand it That was where I got a lot of enjoyment and so I just decided towards the end of my PhD Why don't I just Try putting myself out there. Why don't I just do this thing? I've always really wanted to do and just just start a YouTube channel just for fun And see where it goes and so that's really what motivated me to start My YouTube channel there were other circumstances in my life that made me decide okay now is the time I want to Actually try to do this thing. I've always thought about but that was the general reasoning behind it And so it started out just with anti-vaxxers because that's Kind of where my expertise fit You know in molecular biology understanding vaccines and immunology that's kind of In the same umbrella as molecular biology. So That's where I focused. It's already it's what I already knew a lot about in terms of like what the claims that people make and the relevant information Regarding those claims So I started there and then the pandemic happened and so I kind of started to focus more and more on COVID things week by week Until I was just flooded with you know, all of these different things that people were saying and You know the code the code pandemic has affected all of our lives in one way or another Whether the disease has affected us or someone we know or Any of the precautions that we now take have changed our lives in any ways our jobs, etc So it's important to really understand What the science is about COVID and you know seeing all of these things That I was seeing over the past few months really made me think that I should focus on COVID related topics on my channel So that's what I've been doing Right on to that. This is perfect. Just go right up my alley so Let me uh Let me grab control this a little bit, but you take it back whenever you want. I Got one of my favorite high school students. It's very close to me to put together some slides for me So we're going to use those slides and what we decided to do inside of a science discussion that we're going to have very science-based because I think I like you have a passion for science, you know a little bit of background on me I was a phd student in artificial intelligence At the university, arizona before I decided. Hey, man. I got to follow the money I knew ai ai. I was taking off started company But I always had this passion for science and spirituality. It led me to podcasting It led me to writing a book Why science is wrong about almost everything kind of a cheeky title that gets at science is complete dropping the ball of consciousness and misunderstanding of Really quantum physics implications for the observer effect and what that means for consciousness and what that means for scientific materialism and in the process of interviewing some pretty misinformed and ill-informed scientists I became somewhat of a science Watchdog kind of in the same way that you are only kind of from a different perspective. So This is an opportunity today We decided to kind of focus in on one thing And this topic of whether or not do masks work And I have to say I have to give credit here because I was really prompted to do this by my friend Rick Archer from buda at the gas pump Rick's picture for money was on my show and rick is just a fantastic communicator and contributor and you know his buda at the gas pump show is phenomenally important but at the same time rick is Kind of one of these just doesn't understand science and just kind of falls for every New world order Science trap that he can lay his hands on at least that's my take of it But here's where I wanted to start because to me This is like one of the most important issues We could possibly talk about Related to this and this is the topic of Science and free speech. You know, you are nice enough to fill out this hokey little Questionnaire that I do about Yeah You did it. You're very nice about doing that You seem like a very open guy and I really appreciate that and you know, one of the things one of the questions on there is Conspiracy theory and our conspiracies dangerous And you like most people said, yeah, I think sometimes conspiracies are dangerous And I was wondering, you know, I looked through some of the people that you've um, very rightfully and fairly Challenged in your youtube channel, whether it be james corbett or del big tree. He's on there Um, who else I don't know if you have robert kennedy jr. On there No, he's yeah, sorry go ahead. I'll say he's probably coming up, right? Yeah, he's on my list He's on your list So are any of these and and so I'm gonna be on the other side of your issue Is anything I'm going to say dangerous should any of these people be banned? I mean del big tree is banned He's banned robert kennedy has been banned. Should anyone be banned for talking about this science? Oh, I mean that's a little bit of a Policy question, you know that I don't think I have a Final answer to um It's whether or not someone should be banned for speaking about Misinformation You know, that's something that I would consider myself to have uneducated opinions on I don't think about that day in and day out However, I will say that There does come a point where Spreading misinformation becomes harmful and you have to weigh whether or not it's worth it to Let people who have these audiences of hundreds of thousands of people say things That their audience is going to believe but will ultimately you know End up harming either themselves or people around them um So it's an important question It's important because it's in our constitution. It's the first amendment. It's freedom of speech. I mean, who would decide Who would you have deciding dan? Who's talk whose science should be banned and what science should not be banned? Who would decide that? Oh, well, according to the first amendment, not the government so You know, you just said you just thought you thought it was okay if somebody got, you know 200,000 300,000 million followers and they're spreading quote-unquote misinformation Which like you're spreading I would maintain at the end of the day that you're spreading misinformation Rick and you would maintain that I'm spreading misinformation. We're both reporting on the same science, right? You sent me papers I sent you papers back Who would decide in that? Where's the misinformation? Who would decide who's endangering endangering the lives of thousands of people because If I'm right, then you're endangering the lives of thousands of people. If you're right, then I'm endangering the lives of thousands of people So who decides? well, ultimately If you're asking me who decides who gets banned You know, again, that's a policy question But if we're talking about who's right That's a science question And I think that's a lot more straightforward at least for me to answer And I don't I don't necessarily believe that any everybody should get banned for spreading misinformation I just said that you do have to at some point weigh the fact that you know misinformation can be harmful In making the decision right and I'm just saying I'm not going to belabor this point But I'm saying that's why the first amendment is the first amendment is you you you just Don't want to introduce that and particularly from science. I find it troubling that you would even go down that path I mean, this is the extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof nonsense There's no such thing in science as extraordinary claims or extraordinary proof science is about removing our biases so that so that We know we are prejudiced. We know we have bias one way or another we're to remove those so that no Meta knowledge of what's extraordinary comes into play and the same thing here. I mean, I I expected rick to say Yeah, ban him ban him ban him, but you've been through the bhd program I didn't expect you to to jump on board that anyone who's having a scientific discussion They should somehow That their information should be deemed as quote-unquote misinformation and it should be removed from the the public Sphere, which is what it is because when it's removed from youtube and facebook and twitter all at the same time I mean, that's like You know in the olden days removing it from all the newspapers and all the tv channels Well, I want to clarify again. I didn't say that people should be banned for misinformation, uh, I I think it's a policy question and that is not for Me to decide and that's why I think that I personally have Unexpected opinions. I'm not a policy expert. I don't know who would make that decision I don't know how you would execute such a policy, you know, it's right now. It's up to these private social media companies to make those decisions and we can agree or disagree on their decisions, but You know, I don't think that I don't necessarily think that people should be banned for Uh spreading misinformation. I want to make that clear However, like as again, like I said There does come a point where you have to start weighing each individual decision how Exactly how harmful is this? How much traction is it picking up? How much actual measurable harm is it causing? So I think those are things to consider but again, I am not one to make final decisions on that Okay We'll leave that we'll leave that be for now I'll I would just say the same thing over and over again, but that's not gonna help us any You know what that I would go to kind of this other issue because you mentioned a couple times policy in what you're saying And one of the things I think is interesting about this discussion Is the interface between science and public health policy? You know, I mean, I don't care Dan if you wear a mask I don't care if anyone wears a mask if they feel safe wearing a mask for psychological reasons or for You know, very good reasons because they're around someone who has COVID-19 I don't care what I care about is the science policymaking interface How public policy is made and how science informs that public health policy So when we're talking here and we're going to talk about masks and whether masks masks work We're not talking about it from a personal level, right? We're talking about from how science should interface with public health policy And I guess what that stirred that up for me is when you said that's a policy issue. That's a policy issue Regarding quote-unquote misinformation Well, I'd say this whole discussion we're having is about policy issue because otherwise I don't care if you want to sit there in Pittsburgh and wear a mask or not wear a mask Are we in sync on that? Absolutely. Yeah Okay, and you know, I think uh I think the the difference right away that I'll point out with the policy decision around, you know Mask wearing and the policy decision around who gets banned from social media You know in order to decide who gets banned from social media like I Said earlier when you're weighing these things you You know, I don't know how policy makers would do it again. It's not my area of expertise. Maybe they weigh How harmful certain misinformation is maybe they measure it somehow and decide that way Uh what the policy should be You know, that might be a way to approach it but a way to approach Mask wearing is what's the science? What can we measure? What is mask wearing actually do or not do for somebody and then Thus, what should the policy so In terms of mask wearing, you know We have a lot of data about that and I'm sure we'll discuss all of it But that to me personally is the difference between those two topics Great and we certainly should Dive into the data because we can kind of down dancing around it a little bit So you sent me some research. I sent you some research the research you sent me Is partially listed here in a way that no one can read and I want to let people know that I'm open to going to any research that you sent me, but we can't really get to All of it. It's just kind of practically impossible Sure, but the first thing I want to focus on is this research on whether masks filter stuff out You sent me a bunch of research on this And I get that some people are hung up on this issue But I have to say right from the beginning. This just smacks of Science bullshit. It's the old distraction thing. I mean Does anyone really think that masks don't filter stuff that comes out of and goes into your mouth? This is like what we learned in kindergarten when your mom said cover your face when you cough So the fact that this has kind of been front and center of the science for covet 19 it is really kind of One was first surprising to me and then when I really thought about it. I was like, no, of course This is bringing the topic onto Your home ice under your home turf where you can win the war because what I think and then I really want to let you have a chance at this but what I think is really going on here is that this science is kind of asking you to make an incorrect inference And that is that if in a laboratory setting We can show that a mask Prevents this stuff from coming out of your mouth when you sneeze or cough and prevent stuff from coming into your mouth We want you to make the leap towards saying well, then therefore Mask wearing must help reduce my risk Of contracting covet 19. What do you think about me suggesting that that is an inference that we really shouldn't make From for example, this research that we see right here Yeah, so um, you mind if I share my screen for a minute No, please do I guess I'll just Start going into what you sent me. Uh, mostly Stuffed by uh, Dennis ran court a guy who's kind of well known and Uh, I guess covet denying circles um, but uh, you know something he writes in his page that supposedly debunks masks is kind of summarizing what you're saying here is that we shouldn't make the assumption that uh Viruses are actually stopped By masks. Is that is that a fair Representation of what you're saying. Okay. No, no that is again, I mean Yeah, well, I will and then I'll let you explain this because I want to point out that this is completely Valid and important what you're saying here You're because some people are claiming that masks Don't work in the way that you're saying that they don't work here that they don't block certain Viruses or bacteria as well as they should I'm making a very different, uh Proposition that I don't think you will disagree with But I think it's really at the center of this and I'm surprised that denny kind of goes down the wrong path it's that let's say I was to accept that, uh You know just like when mom said cover your mouth when you're cough that that that works essentially to some degree In terms of stopping you from spreading this bad stuff that can make other people sick, right? Mm-hmm. What I'm saying is that if you prove that in a lab That does not lead to the conclusion that wearing a mask Leads should lead to a reduction in your chances of contracting kovat 19. It may But it may not and that's the difference between laboratory work and clinical work Clinical work is with humans and in clinical work. We might we might ask a whole bunch of different questions How long are you wearing the mask? What kind of mask are you wearing? How are you operating the mask whether you're touching or not? There's all these other questions that come in when we get a human involved which would lead us to Asking different questions doing different experiments to determine whether or not the mask which worked in the lab Works in real life. That's was my point I see I see so you you want to see the connection between the lab and The community or the lab in the clinic? Well, I'm suggesting yes You want to see those results carry over to real-world situations? Absolutely because I mean as a scientist particularly as a biologist Maybe you want to speak to this You'd be kind of making my point But we've established a lot of shit in the lab that doesn't work in clinical trials It seems to work in the lab and we're like wow, this should really be great And then we put it in clinical trials with humans and it doesn't work Yeah, yeah, so I'm glad you said that so yeah, I mean there is you're right There is a stepwise process to this kind of thing first you want to show That something works in the lab because it's easy to work in a lab. It takes not a lot of resources and you can tightly control and design an experiment pretty easily in the lab So you want to show that it works there first and You know, we can go through the studies, but there are several That show that masks of course do work in the lab They stop viral particles from going beyond the mask the mask catches these viral particles that could otherwise be detected in these experiments but there are also you know Of course the next step after you get done with testing something in the lab is to say does this work In humans does this work in real situations? So yeah, that's a fair thing to want and You know, that's people have studied that and There are some randomized controlled trials clustered randomized controlled trials that demonstrate That masks do work in community settings and they look at Variables and you're right. It's really complicated To study masks and it's part of the reason why sometimes the literature can be hard to traverse, but There are several studies that discuss all these nuances such as when when do masks get implemented? How compliant are people with the masks? Were there other things that were controlled for in the experiment? and What you end up with is Are experiments that all of them have some weakness all of them have some weakness that The researchers can't control for because it's tough to test Humans humans are terrible test subjects to have But I think that if we dive into it, we'll see that What the researchers have been able to find is that masks do reduce transmission When used properly Okay, so we we will be we will begin to dive into that and I think you know, let me just say that in I thought the research that you said was very fair It it as a matter of fact, I was kind of surprised that you sent it because it does kind of reveal how complicated and how Really up in the air this topic is it has not clearly decided one way or another and the way that I kind of played around with the idea Was to say to really look at the question. We need a time machine And the time machine would go back to 2003 when we had a covid virus that was very dangerous it's called SARS a lot of people are really worried about it and We looked at whether mask wearing would be good because the mask wearing question, right? Like you alluded to it's been around for a long time, right? And masks have been around a long time and the idea that you know masks was to prevent the spread of influenza or air transmitted diseases Has been around for a long time So they've looked at it and as a matter of fact, it's kind of surprising that they keep finding over and over again that masks Do not work for the most part. You know, I mean, this is the old literature 2009 2010 2012 and you you of course can cite different research, but these are good research Unless you want to come in and say some of them aren't but again They're applying the same the people are looking at this are saying the same thing. Do we have a randomized control trial? Are we really? Uh, properly evaluating Whether or not the end result is what we thought are we give laboratory tests of whether or not there was the virus or is Somebody just self reporting it. So there's all this research over time that kept coming back and telling us that masks Surprisingly don't seem to be efficacious and the reason we know that is because when we go in our time machine and when we go to SARS there was no mask mandates When we went to the swine flu in 2008, there were no mask mandates when we go to the super bowl last year when Kansas City won and there's all the fans And it was a big flu season There were no mask mandates And the reason it wasn't because everyone was asleep at the switch So playing along with me dan Would you agree with that part that there was science? prior to January 2020 and the conclusion of that science had been that masks weren't efficacious Uh, and I wouldn't agree with that actually, uh, there were there was plenty of research to say that I'd say overall the general message of the literature especially prior to 2020 when it comes to mask wearing was that Let's see if I could sum it up I think I would say Mask wearing helps, but we don't know the full extent of it and it's hard to study Uh, that's what that's generally that's not what the cdc said that wasn't the conclusion I mean even in the study you sent me the first study and we'll look at it in a minute The opening line of the study is hey, there's a lot of controversy about masks Some really good studies say they don't work. Some say they do work So, I mean, I don't think I'm exaggerating here. Even the cdc had come down and said Gee, we don't know. We don't quite understand why masks don't work But at this time we can't really recommend the widespread use of masks in these, uh, situations. I mean that was That was the situation we were in. That's what we all lived. I mean we all lived it and experienced it Well, the okay, we'll go into it for a little bit here. Um, I think that, um Let's see You bring up dentists ran court's list, uh of studies on that page you just showed I think Um Where he talks about the reasons why face masks face masks, uh, don't work So let me just go through Let's just pick the first paper in order that he brings up To say that masks don't work So this is a study he lists from, uh, Japan. It's a randomized controlled trial of mask wearing in healthcare workers And so they had, uh, one group they had two groups one one group wore face masks one did not They had, um You know decent number of people, uh 2000 about two and a half thousand subjects But out of all of these subjects, uh, there were only two colds That occurred one in each group And so the conclusion was basically a larger study is needed. Uh, now this to me doesn't really say That masks don't work. I'm not sure why dentists would include it in his list Um, but moving on to, you know, his his second study, which I think is has a little bit more substance because it's a systematic review Um looking at mask wearing Uh, right in the summary, it says, you know, they're and this is from 2010 says there is some evidence to support The wearing of face mask respirators during illness to protect others And public health emphasis on mask wearing during illness may help to reduce influenza virus transmission There are fewer data to support use of masks or respirators to prevent becoming infected And this is again in reference to influenza Um, we go through the papers that the systematic review looked at um And we start to see that, you know, the evidence, although although they don't specifically say that, uh Mask wearing is significantly Is this really significant, uh Measure that everybody should take all the time in every In every disease situation My point is that the evidence is definitely leaning towards, um The effectiveness of of masks and so Yeah, you can go through these studies here that this, uh, meta analysis goes over they find randomized controlled trials that find, um That find effectiveness in mask wearing among healthcare workers they mentioned the japan study and also mentioned that It's underpowered to Detect any significance because only two people got sick um And they also talk about a study that was generally inconclusive while also talking about uh cross-sectional studies, uh, or Um Observational studies from The 1918 influenza in boston that suggests that max masks do work So you go through these papers and you start to read what they're actually saying instead of, you know, just dentists is kind of picked out quotes and You start to get this picture that mask wearing Had a lot of precedents, uh, even before the cova 19 pandemic, uh, this one specifically Uh, a study in a community setting Uh, which pointed out that um Although they didn't really Observe much significance significant reduction of illness associated with mask wearing when they um When they analyze the data to look for Uh, the timing of the intervention so within 36 hours of symptom onset and again, this is dealing with influenza not coronavirus Um, they did see a statistically significant reduction in laboratory confirmed influenza, so They kind of start to bring in this nuance that you mentioned in the beginning like like When are people using it? How are they? Uh handling it, you know, this doesn't Measure how many times people touch their face with the mask, of course But it starts to bring that nuance in and it finds support for Uh mask wearing and you can continue to go through and find that it's pretty much False what uh, rant court is saying That none of this study showed a benefit in either health care workers or community members. That is false if you actually read these meta analyses Um, it's it's not it's not accurate It's not a good representation of what the science actually said Okay, I'll do your not a good representation of what the science says One better. So here's the first one that you sent me after the mask one And uh anyone can read it there peer reviewed and it is a systematic review again It's a meta analysis, right? So maybe you want to explain to people what a meta analysis is so um A meta analysis is just when researchers basically look at a body of literature and try to come up with a summary based on the data that has been collected over many years by Several researchers and published in several different papers Kind of a summary of lots of years of research is what a meta analysis is So here we have the results of that meta analysis And it says they started with all these Potential relevant citations, which again speaks to the point we're making about you know It's hard to do this kind of science They do this complete breakdown of all these studies that they looked at and they looked at the effectiveness of disinfecting and hygiene of creating barriers Of combined of all this stuff and what they come to again and again And this isn't the study that you sent me Statistical significance was not attained and they'll say that again Did not the group did not reach statistical significance So over and over again, there is no conclusive evidence So I sent you the rancor stuff. Denny is I think fantastic, but I don't like follow him I go and read the research like one of the research studies that you sent me is this hong kong research In the households involved in laboratory confirmed cases Actually, the one you sent me was a phone interview Of people in Hong Kong I mean it Where there was never even a laboratory confirmed cases. They just said at the end. Well, did you get really sick? It sounds like you had it. So we're gonna We're gonna stack it up on that side of it. So over and over again My read of this data is it does not reach statistical significance and again, you know, like you're putting down or you're Just making your point that rancor had sent Links to studies that didn't really support what he was saying I would say you've done the same thing here and saying here it is Alex Here my number one is that masks really work and I said, well, who cares? We already knew that masks work. It's whether or not they're Effective in help in reduce it because what we really care about is is wearing a mask Going to help me not get the covid disease So the only way we can do that is move the clinical trials and we'll move to the clinical trials and again again They say there's no statistically significant result that suggests that you should wear a mask and the reason that we know that is just observable, right No one requires masks. They didn't require masks in the hospital. They didn't require masks in public places all these things mask mandates didn't happen until 2020 in in april so the question that I think is just I don't even know that it should be controversial between us, but it might be is What is the science that propelled us to this new level of policy? so I wouldn't say that it was new science that propelled us to uh adopt the policy or You know encourage policies of mask mandates. It was just a changing situation because Like I said before, you know the general consensus in science before the covid pandemic was that mask wearing helps and it shouldn't be The first thing we do, uh, you know Consistently in these papers, they will say things like you might see things like uh mask mandates should be A last resort and that's where does it show me show me a paper that says that Oh, uh, let's see. Uh, it's in one of the papers that I Because my read of it says that it's inconclusive. It's just inconclusive. We don't know it as a matter of fact They kind of say this seems to be kind of a mystery because we would expect masks To work better than they do but every time we put them in clinical trials there's The the effect is not statistically significant and some of the studies even show an adverse effect inside the study I'll have to circle back to the Study that says that mass should be our last resort. Um, but just for now trying to address what I can This study, uh, what you brought up, uh Is yeah a study I sent to you and it's what I included in this little PowerPoint presentation But the reason I sent it to you is uh, if you see what I highlighted Is because I thought this was a good example of How complicated the literature can be so this is looking at the use of non-pharmaceutical intervention and reducing the transmission of influenza and They say that common issues in all these studies where that protective effects of each individual intervention were difficult to discern including hand washing including um, you know the other non-pharmaceutical interventions that were studied in this analysis in this meta analysis Or systematic review rather um they're saying that uh adherence to face mask use in particular is wholly described As an indicating ability to demonstrate significant change through small numbers So they're saying adherence to face mask use is a problem in a lot of these studies It's hard to control for that as we have already talked about. So I thought that was a good example of uh of that, but if you A good example a good example of what Dan because I read that differently than you do Oh, it's a it's a good example of how hard it is to study in the community setting and why you know Why you know a surface dive into the literature might give the wrong impression Right, and I guess I take that one step further and say there's two ways to read that One is way to read it is to say Gee if people would just wear their masks, we probably would have gotten better results And I would say that study doesn't say that That study just says what it says it says it's difficult to control for it like you said And the the point that I would again bring up and maybe you want to comment it Maybe you don't is that if this science had reached the point where there seemed to be a significant health benefit from mask wearing and we were seriously contemplating in a kind of public health policy way Whether or not mask wearing was a good idea the first thing we do Is look at the adverse potential adverse effects of mask wearing We don't have any science on that and the reason we don't have any science on that we do now People are saying there's reduced oxygen flow They're saying that in some cases maybe even the masks contribute to Contracting various respiratory diseases because bacteria and viruses can concentrate in the masks None of that science is studied and there still needs to be a lot more done But all the science that we're reviewing here is really on one side of the equation And that is can we show that masks work if we're really going to be fair from a policymaking standpoint We'd balance that with a whole bunch of science on whether or not whether or not masks might be harmful Would would you agree with that or no? Or yeah, and I think the research is there for that but just to Just to you know continue on Extend from that review that we just talked about You know litter One important thing to do in science is to look at the literature as a whole, you know one paper even if it's a review Doesn't necessarily represent the entire body of literature. So you have to Go from study to study and see if their conclusions are consistent right reproducibility is important in science and so here's just one meta analysis That ends up concluding That face mask use demonstrated mixed results as we explain as we just went over for various reasons But a randomized controlled trial suggests that it is effective and that randomized controlled trial is referenced in in this paper and There are a couple other randomized controlled trials that I've set to you and pulled up here where Again, it's looking at influenza not necessarily core coronaviruses but face masks were found in these clustered randomized controlled trials to be effective in reducing the Illness especially again, you know, we see this 36 hour after symptom onset number come up Timing is important When you implement mask wearing so there are data to show that Mask wearing is effective in controlled community settings Here's another one and I included this one just to say that the litter one other point in the literature is that not mask wearing but Other interventions in addition to mask wearing is even better than mask wearing alone, you know, we We we say that mask wearing is not a hundred percent effective You know, if that were true then we could just wear masks and that would be the only thing we change in our lives But that's not what's been happening. You know, we have We get recommended mask wearing and social distancing and hand washing and you know, we get We hear about proper ventilation and et cetera, et cetera. It's because all combining all of these tactics together will give us a better chance at eliminating or just reducing We don't we don't we don't know that How can you say that Dan? How we're just looking at we're reading the same study here Overall direct evidence of the effect of efficacy of mask use is supportive, but inconclusive. Well, again, I don't I don't know It's supportive in the sense of laboratory work and it's supportive in the sense of some Randomized control trials that you can show but it is inconclusive Which is ultimately the answer just to follow that point a little bit. I think it's Unfair to say that inconclusive means we have no idea, you know inconclusive means We need better data and we should get better data, but the data that we have is supportive So when we're dealing with a pandemic that is rapidly spinning out of control We want to use the tools that we have available to us and Evidence is supportive of mask wearing. So Why should we not use those tools and you know, you bring up adverse effects due to masks we can talk about that but um, you can Um, bring up what you were going to bring up I don't want to just keep spinning on the same points We might do that a little bit, but We're getting to The point that we kind of started at is the interface Between science and policy making and the first thing that I'd say is that interface should be incredibly transparent and the means by which Mandates of this type Unprecedented mandates Are instituted Should be clear in terms of why how and for how long they're being implemented. None of that was done The science in my opinion In no in no way Would support mandatory Uh mandates with masks This could easily be done with uh recommendations medical recommendations get your phony baloney board of You know white lab coated Guys up there and have one say one thing and one say another and let people decide There's all sorts of ways to do this and then The other thing is we have to hear all the voices like we started. We're panning people We're banning scientists from this discussion and there's no arguing about that. You can just go and find him That is Precidented and it's all done under and that's the point. I wanted to make it's all done under a very very shaky Scientific idea and that is well the severity of the health crisis demanded it It doesn't work like that. You can't amplify Inconclusive and get conclusive out of it because it's really dangerous. It doesn't work that way either you have Statistically significant results and you can roll them out and get more or you don't and you have to sit back and do more Of the hard leg work in research and come up with a solution. I guess I would just say, you know We might be in a semantics battle, but you know one thing That I think a lot of people have a problem with When it comes to information during this pandemic is that the science Might seem shaky and that they use language like may or You know Inconclusive, but if you look at the the data the data itself the data do show that masks are effective and The inconclusive and the may that language comes from this desire of scientists to say like, you know, this evidence Could be stronger. We could do Stronger tests because the ultimate test to do in this situation is a randomized controlled trial and there aren't a lot of randomized controlled trials when it comes to mask wearing because We haven't had many opportunities to do to do a kind of study like that and it's uh Difficult to do, you know, um, there's also the ethical question of Do you in the pandemic? uh, do you assign People to a group where they don't wear masks and possibly put them at more risk Um, but I guess yeah, my point is just It's it's not as uncertain as um You know the language might make it seem to be Because I just completely disagree with that because the language of science is numbers And particularly these kind of it's statistics And either the statistics reach a level of statistical significance or they can't There's no it comes close. It comes close in this study. It doesn't come close in this study I mean, and that's the the reason that we do meta-analysis if I can just point out, you know, we do have um Statistically significant results saying that masks are effective, you know, we so for example in this, um um Let's see I know I was in households blah blah blah blah Uh, significantly lower so comparing the mask only group to mask and hygiene group, uh, the secondary infection Was significantly lower Compared to the control group in both the mask and mask hand washing group I mean, that's there are statistical significance there um You know, you can find statistically significant results in several studies. It's not just We're totally uncertain and we're pulling this out of nowhere and now Now we just hope it works. You know, there's a lot of reason behind this Including all the way from laboratory studies all to community settings all that all those experiments There are data in every category there It's not perfect data. We could have more data but The data that we have suggests that it works Well, okay, so we can just kind of disagree on that the study you were just pulling up Actually had 80 participants in that study that wouldn't be like a super strong Study and you acknowledge that and I guess I would go back, you know, I mean we've got to just be Kind of share it all out there and here's Here's denny again and you pulled apart one of his research Studies that he cited but really over and over again. There's There's case study after case study and he actually has the quotes None of these studies reviewed show a benefit of wearing a mask in community members households tables one and two therein and I've looked at those Uh, there are 17 eligible studies. None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask respirator use protect and protection that influence and influence the infection so It's not like uh, this guy in here with Smith in 2016 We identified six clinical studies and they met an analysis of them. We found no significant difference between Masks and the risk of laboratory confirmed infection So, you know, it's not like the people on the other side of this are making this stuff up They're citing science the same way that you're citing it and the conclusion That that you come to Is not supported by The conclusion that the cdc eventually came to let's say like I say in last year's Super Bowl when the chiefs won No one was wearing masks. So all this research that we're talking about was available and they could have Implemented or strongly recommended. It's not even a mandate They could have strongly recommended at that point that during flu season everyone wear a mask They could have recommended at the Super Bowl that if you're in the at-risk group, you should wear a mask None of that was done That speaks to where the cdc And not like the cdc or the world health organization is the be all end all But that speaks to the state of the science. I don't know why we can't find agreement on that because I think that's We all lived through it. There was no recommendation for mask wearing at that time Yeah, I I would think that's more of a cultural thing than a science thing Honestly, there are different well then then great then great then you're saying that the change that we've had Is a cultural thing and I would agree It should be a science thing and it's not it's a cultural thing There's no big massive wave of science that came out in 2020 that turned things the other way It's a cultural thing. It's a political thing. It's a scion No, I'm saying that I think the reason masks weren't pushed hardly recommended is A cultural thing, you know, there are other nations that have always worn masks That a mask wearing has always been a strong part of their culture And in america it just hasn't and that's not necessarily a reflection of the science in my opinion But I'd like to just go hop over to uh back to Dennis's list here I have Some of his papers pull up. We already went over that one, but uh yeah, so the use of face masks Respirators to prevent transmission of influenza. He had this on his list and he had this to say about it that He picked out that there were 17 eligible studies None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between masks Respirator use and protection against influenza infection But in the study if you read it it says that none of the studies can establish a conclusive Link, but some evidence does suggest that mask use is best undertaken as part of a package of personal protection and that uh mask use is the success of mask use is likely linked to It's early and consistent and correct usage because in this study They did control for factors such as like Did health care workers wear their masks their their entire shift or did they not and when they found that When they looked at that and saw that masks health care workers who wore their masks in their entire shift Did have a statistically significant lower outcome lower disease outcome That is what they're reporting in here. They're saying that it's likely linked to consistent and correct usage, but Um Moving on to his other studies. Can I reject something there? Your your point is well taken to a certain extent, but if this Science part of this discussion can be useful to anyone one of the things that I know about these kind of studies is a lot of times they feel it necessary to report on Their speculation about what their study might be But it really isn't within the game to kind of change the goalposts during it, right? So if you don't go into the study initially and say, okay We're going to control for how long they use it And wear it during the study then you can't really at the end of the day say, hey We did notice this little statistical difference and we should pursue it further. I'm not saying that that isn't a potentially important Uh conclusion or an important point that needs to be studied further and controlled further But I I don't think Denny on the other hand is really Misrepresenting the science when the scientists say hey, we have a speculation that it might fall this way or that way But what we found was not statistically significant Oh Again, there are statistically significant findings, but yeah, yeah, but we're talking about this study I mean, yes, so you but we're talking about this study, right? Sure. And inconclusive findings does not mean statistically insignificant It's just right, but it doesn't mean that it is significant And it doesn't mean that if you didn't control forward a different way or if you didn't look at the adverse effects It would counterbalance it. So this is a good discussion because it's how where we keep coming back to Science is complicated and therefore my conclusion is policymaking should be equally complex complicated and in particular transparent and That's where I come to short and but so if we look at you know other The other papers on Dennis's Uh list so this study is comparing n95 masks to surgical masks and what he ends up saying is that um There's no significant difference between them Uh, and he goes on later to say that if masks do work Then you would expect n95s to work better than surgical masks But that's really a misleading claim. Uh, I It's it's not necessarily going to be that way because You know if if a mask is Masks aren't 100 effective masks are going to block most of the viral particles that come out of someone's nose and mouth But you aren't necessarily going to see a difference between n95 and surgical masks in every Uh situation especially when it comes to influenza which spreads through aerosols More readily than uh certain other viruses So that is a great point, but that really kind of goes back to my point I'm going to ask denny about that. I don't know really well I mean, I just had a couple email exchanges with him and I read his paper But I'm going to ask him about that because your point in this case is the point I keep making is we can't make inferences That propel us beyond the known science So if you're saying if the study is comparing n95 and uh and masks then you can't Extrapolate and say oh well then that means this for that Well, I'm saying the same thing if you have a study and it is ultimately inconclusive and not statistically significant You can't say oh gee or it's really close or since this virus is really really bad. We should jump on board anyway Did you have any kind of? concluding kind of thoughts or remarks on this I would say that when it comes to mask use you know, there are general principles that we can pull from the literature And we know from a laboratory setting that base masks reduce the number of infectious viral particles that escape From the nose and mouth into the environment. That is perfectly logical. We can all We can all see that if someone is wearing a mask and they sneeze or cough That they're not going to expel as many snot saliva et cetera particles from their nose and mouth that could potentially be carrying Viruses that logic holds right so In a laboratory setting this is demonstrable with coronavirus as we can see that When someone's not wearing a mask they expel plenty of viral particles and included in droplets and aerosols, but when someone wears a mask that number drops to almost zero That's repeatable in several studies where masks block a really really high percentages of viral particles from coming out of Someone's mouth knows repeatable repeatable repeatable And then when we carry this over to okay, but dan I have to interject I know you're making sure there's a remark, but I kind of nailed that I mean who cares that doesn't just we get and the fact that it gets repeated over and over again Like you just did with some kind of mantra mesmerizing thing. It's science bullshit It doesn't have anything to do with answering the question. Am I safer wearing a mask? It doesn't answer that because it doesn't relate to how I'm using how it works with other humans. It's just it's science bullshit Well, I would disagree. I think it's a really important part of the puzzle You know, like we said at the beginning it's important to see whether or not something works in a lab setting And that's usually the first thing that scientists do before going and testing it further with more No one had any doubt whether it would work. It's home ice No one had any doubt that if I put if I do that It it does the same thing if I cover my mouth when I cough stuff doesn't come out to elevate it to this level of advanced refined science to say that if you cover somebody's mouth They stuff doesn't come out of it when they sneeze is a total head fake bullshit way of kind of Wrapping all this nonsense in science the the conclusion is it was inconclusive the conclusion is at last year's Super Bowl when the chiefs won no one had to wear a mask because no one was told to wear a mask Because that's what the best science said and there hasn't been a wave of science that would change that I I disagree. Um, so Let's see. Um Yeah, I mean, I think it's an important point to still make that masks actually physically stop viral particles from coming out of your nose and mouth because part of what we've seen you know, quote-unquote experts say is Uh, what I've encountered in making my videos is this weird analogy that wearing a mask is like Trying to keep mosquitoes out with a fence and that's not the case and we can demonstrate that in the lab. So it's important to what I want to convey here is that this these lab experiments are an important step an important piece of the puzzle to Make a proof of concept a proof of principle, right? That viral particles can be blocked from your nose and mouth if you put a mask over your face Therefore, it's not really much of a leap to say. Okay. If we have a community of people Who are blocking viral particles from coming out of their nose and mouth We have a you know grocery store for people who Instead of sneezing into the open air. They're sneezing into their masks. They're talking into their masks coughing into their masks It's not a leap of logic to say that there are going to be fewer viral particles Out in the environment that the rest of the community can encounter and thus spread the virus So if we test that assumption, right? So science is all about continuing the test if we test that in a community setting With or a clinical setting with healthcare workers We can consistently find statistically significant Albeit in complete evidence that face masks are effective that that principle carries over to the community and the clinic So we can see that throughout the literature We can see that throughout You know trends that have happened throughout the pandemic where communities or countries that implement mask mandates early Uh, they are associated with better outcomes. Of course, this doesn't take into account what other tech what other tactics the country's Implemented but again, that's hard to study perfectly in a complicated ki pandemic There's also evidence that contradicts that there's countries counties and states that didn't have mask mandates or had less restrictive mask mandates That do not show a statistically significant difference in incidents of covet 19. So I'm really I was with you just letting you kind of do your spiel there at the end But this is kind of very deceptive Talk about cherry picking. We just do not have a handle on what that would mean And maybe in a year we will if the data really comes out, but The indications are the indications in terms of events too in terms of large gatherings You know when Notre Dame wins the big football game against Clemson and 30 000 non mask wearing kids Uh storm the field and there's no big outbreak afterwards You know, we have these anecdotal accounts that that kind of support a counter conclusion So I like where we're at before I just don't like this if you give me back the screen. Let's wrap this up because You've really been a tremendous guest and I mean that I tell you folks I can't tell you the number of times I've tried to engage with super smart well qualified people That have a different opinion than I do on this and they just won't engage and with Dr. Dan Wilson We had full engagement full addressing the issues we didn't have to agree And he didn't seek for seek agreement. He just kind of laid out his case in a very strong compelling way and I really really honor and respect that so Dan tell folks What you're working on because I know your interest goes Beyond just COVID-19 even though I couldn't understand how you're sucked into that vortex. So Where where do you plan to go with this? Science education enlightenment kind of project of yours Sure. Yeah, and I just want to thank you for having me on as a guest First and foremost and I appreciate the conversation and the willingness to engage I think that's of course, really important. Um, what I'm working on now. I mean, well Well, I earned my PhD last year and have since started a new job And my hobbies i'm continuing to just Cover what I whatever I really feel like with my youtube channel Honestly the list is still dominated by colored related topics, but I'm interested in all sorts of things You know Let's see I have a One of my videos on my channel. I talked about a book by Bruce Lipton spontaneous spontaneous evolution. So that realm of and in my opinion, pseudoscience is always on my radar Things that have to do with anti-vaxxers, of course, we mentioned rfk jr. The beginning of this he's on the horizon I covered a lot of del big tree back in the early months of my channel And that'll probably come back but I'm going to stay in the realm of Um, you know vaccine science Evolution science Let's see cancer cures as part of the Bruce Lipton book I just showed All that content is stuff that interests me and What I'll probably be covering at some point in my channel. I only make one video week So I can all cover so much I hear you. I've gotten sucked into doing more. I used to do one every two weeks But anyways, uh, fantastic would love to talk to you again at some point The Bruce Lipton stuff is primarily interesting to me from a consciousness perspective I believe that uh, most biologists are completely misinformed about basic science like the double slit experiment and its implications for consciousness and for the observer effect Which is fundamentally what Bruce Lipton is kind of reaching for and I particularly like point out the Six sigma result that was consistently got by Dean Ray doctor Dean Raiden replicated in multiple laboratories Uh, not only replicated in his laboratory, but laboratories around the world. It's a science that most people who are Uninformed about consciousness kind of skate around completely But if you get there if you get to that point and if you want to talk about it I'd love to because you're really a great guest and I really admire your your intellectual chops You're a smart guy and it's been great having you on. Thanks again, Dan Hey, thanks a lot. Alex appreciate it Thanks again to dr. Dan Wilson for joining me today on skeptico I don't know if we're going to have much discussion on this or not, but if we do I guess I'd like to focus on Why no one seems to care about the science by edict part of this I mean, it's the worst possible outcome of where science could lead Oh See the bright side. I know there's a bright side in there someplace Let me know your thoughts skeptico forum got some good shows coming up Stay with me for all of that until next time. Take care and bye for now