how did they control for variables you can say they use the control group all you want but if you can't explain how you don't know.
I never said that either. Why do you have to be dishonest?
You pretend everybody is as ignorant as you.
explain. Explain how.
1. By using a control group. I get that you don't understand why it's a control group. It controls for variables.
For example in one of the studies in the reviews I cited.. the researchers looked at households where a newly infected person went home to quarantine.
They compared the infection rates in households where the infected person wore a mask. With a control, a household where the infected person did not wear a mask.
Now.. someone might say..."but but but what if the household where the person wore the mask was made up of 20 somethings that were healthy. While the household that did not wear the mask was made up of elderly people that were really susceptible to infection.? then a higher rate of infection in the unmasked group could be due to the age of people and not mask wearing?".
Exactly. Which is why the researchers took care to collect the data on the demographics of the two groups s and to have a large enough N (number of subjects) so that the only difference between the two groups was whether the infected person wore a mask, or whether they did not. Thats how they controlled for intervening variables such as age of individuals in the household..
Now.. thats not all the researchers did. Because despite having a control group and an experimental group that was virtually identical except for mask wearing,, there is still the element of chance. In other words, there is still the possibility that any difference between the two groups might just be due to chance.
Therefore the researchers also did a statistical analysis of the results to see if the difference between the two groups was likely due to chance or was not likely due to chance.
If its not likely due to chance, then the result is said to be "statistically significant".
As pointed out in the review.. the researchers found that the households in which the infected person did not wear a mask, had a statistically significant higher rate of infection than those households where the infected person wore a mask.
Given that the two groups were so similar other than mask wearing, this is strong evidence that when an infected person wears a mask, it significantly reduces the chances of infecting others
2. Sure you did. You intimated that correlation was similar to superstition. Why do you have to be so dishonest.?
Look at how you first dismissed correlation completely,, and now you are crawfishing because you cannot explain if its so worthless as evidence why its used so much in science.
3. Hmmm. Yeah.. I think I have demonstrated a much greater knowledge of research than you have.
4. See above. o
