There's a new study in PNAS saying that masks can dramatically reduce virus transmission. It's gotten tons of press.
And it seems to be crap. I have only had a chance to skim the study, but this thread (from a Stanford postdoc) is absolutely damning. Not only should this paper be retracted*, but there should be a full review by the journal of their review procedures to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/NoahHaber/status/1271518754627678208[/tweet]
If you don't want to read through the whole thread, I'll just mention one thing: there are no statistics or p-values in the entire paper. None.
* I know that there has been chatter here before that "scientific freedom" or something means that papers widely viewed as wrong should not be retracted. I still do not see how improperly analyzed data makes the scientific process better. Retraction is the best thing for fatally flawed papers like this one. Especially when published in a good journal.
And it seems to be crap. I have only had a chance to skim the study, but this thread (from a Stanford postdoc) is absolutely damning. Not only should this paper be retracted*, but there should be a full review by the journal of their review procedures to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/NoahHaber/status/1271518754627678208[/tweet]
If you don't want to read through the whole thread, I'll just mention one thing: there are no statistics or p-values in the entire paper. None.
* I know that there has been chatter here before that "scientific freedom" or something means that papers widely viewed as wrong should not be retracted. I still do not see how improperly analyzed data makes the scientific process better. Retraction is the best thing for fatally flawed papers like this one. Especially when published in a good journal.