Scientific American - USA (2021-03)

8 Scientific American, March 2021

LETTERS

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ESTABLISHED 1845

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN CUSTOM MEDIA

EDITORIAL Gareth Cook, Katherine Harmon Courage, Lydia Denworth,

Ferris Jabr, Anna Kuchment, Robin Lloyd, Steve Mirsky,

Melinda Wenner Moyer, George Musser, Ricki L. Rusting,

Dan Schlenoff, Dava Sobel, Claudia Wallis

ART Edward Bell, Zoë Christie, Lawrence R. Gendron, Nick Higgins, Katie Peek, Beatrix Mahd Soltani

EDITOR IN CHIEF

Laura Helmuth

A R T

ART DIRECTOR Jason Mischka SENIOR GRAPHICS EDITOR Jen Christiansen

PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Monica Bradley ART DIRECTOR, ONLINE Ryan Reid

ASSOCIATE GRAPHICS EDITOR Amanda Montañez ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR Liz Tormes

COPY AND PRODUCTION

SENIOR COPY EDITORS Angelique Rondeau, Aaron Shattuck

MANAGING PRODUCTION EDITOR Richard Hunt PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER Silvia De Santis

CONTRIBUTORS

MANAGING EDITOR Curtis Brainard COPY DIRECTOR Maria-Christina Keller CREATIVE DIRECTOR Michael Mrak

E D I T O R I A L

CHIEF FEATURES EDITOR Seth Fletcher CHIEF NEWS EDITOR Dean Visser CHIEF OPINION EDITOR Michael D. Lemonick

FEATURES

SENIOR EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Mark Fischetti

SENIOR EDITOR, MEDICINE / SCIENCE POLICY Josh Fischman

SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Clara Moskowitz

SENIOR EDITOR, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY Madhusree Mukerjee

SENIOR EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY / MIND Jen Schwartz

SENIOR EDITOR, EVOLUTION / ECOLOGY Kate Wong

NEWS

SENIOR EDITOR, MIND / BRAIN Gary Stix

SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS Lee Billings

SENIOR EDITOR, HEALTH AND MEDICINE Tanya Lewis

ASSOCIATE EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY Sophie Bushwick

ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY Andrea Thompson

ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR Sarah Lewin Frasier

MULTIMEDIA

SENIOR EDITOR, MULTIMEDIA Jeffery DelViscio

SENIOR EDITOR, AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT Sunya Bhutta SENIOR EDITOR, COLLECTIONS Andrea Gawrylewski

EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Ericka Skirpan EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT SUPERVISOR Maya Harty

EDITORS EMERITI Mariette DiChristina, John Rennie

MANAGING EDITOR Cliff Ransom CREATIVE DIRECTOR Wojtek Urbanek

MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Kris Fatsy MULTIMEDIA EDITOR Ben Gershman

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PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Madelyn Keyes-Milch ADVERTISING PRODUCTION CONTROLLER Dan Chen

MASK MISTAKE?
In “Scientists: Use Common Sense” [Obser-
vatory], Naomi Oreskes criticizes the World
Health Organization for initially advising
people not to wear masks in response to
COVID-19 in April. She gives two reasons
the WHO did so: (1) A medical mask short-
age would result for critical care workers.
(2) Masks would give people a false sense
of security. I concur with Oreskes in reject-
ing 2. But 1 was a powerful argument at the
time. If an N95 mask manufacturer could
get a higher price from pharmacies or other
customers than it could from hospitals, what
does she think would have happened?
Fortunately, the problem was solved—
at least here in Los Angeles County, where
our local officials wisely recognized that
wearing any mask, even a simple cloth one,
would help and organized local garment
manufacturers to turn them out. Yet at
present, with the start of the third wave
and companies openly selling N95 masks
to the public, we might be back in trouble
again. I hope this doesn’t happen. But I also
note that a responsible U.S. federal govern-
ment could have prevented it.
D. S. Burnett
California Institute of Technology

DATA AND DECEPTION

Your recent editions have had a number of

articles about misinformation. I would like

to introduce the notion that data precede

information, whether it constitutes misin-

formation or not. As any scientist can attest,

there are good and bad data. Good data are

obtained by careful control of conditions

and demonstration of reproducibility. Bad

data can arise from sloppiness, confirma-

tion bias or intentional falsification. Infor-

mation of any kind arises from analyzing

data; misinformation arises from bad data

or a distorted analysis of good data.

There are an enormous number of sourc-

es of intentionally bad data created to en-

trap people. How can our society step back

from the edge? Science in the U.S. is taught

as a series of facts to be accepted unques-

tioningly. Instead children need to be taught

the clear, critical thinking that underlies the

scientific enterprise. Many of the most egre-

gious bits of misinformation are, on inspec-

tion, stupid. Far too many Americans have

no capacity to identify “stupid.”

Arthur Moss Wilmington, Del.