Trust Science?

Now we have had a ton of "scientists" opinion on everything during this pandemic. The latest flap is a Lancet study stating the lack of efficacy and even the harm from some medication. The Scientist writes that there is massive opposition to this paper. They note:

The database used for the Lancet study, which the paper states includes 96,032 patients from 671 hospitals across six continents, is accessible only by Surgisphere. But in the week since the paper’s publication, concerns about that dataset have swirled on social media, on the post-publication discussion website PubPeer, and in newspapers.  Initial concerns centered on the paper’s statistical analyses, as well as the fact that COVID-19 patient data were surprisingly homogeneous across continents, despite known differences in demographics and underlying health conditions in those populations. More-recent concerns have broadened to other aspects of the dataset. Desai has since acknowledged one error in an Australian cohort and yesterday published a brief correction. While he has said in an interview with The Scientist that he is looking into clearing up confusion around the study findings, Desai has continued to defend his work and the integrity of the Surgisphere data. But that response has not assuaged the concerns of the scientific community. On May 28, an open letter, which has now accrued more than 180 signatories at research institutions around the world, laid out multiple other problems with the study data and analyses. In addition, readers of the study are beginning to ask about the nature and history of Surgisphere, and how it managed to obtain such a complex dataset in a relatively short period of time. 

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. It does not appear to have a positive ending and the net result will be abject disrespect for the "gang" of scientists. Worse yet will be the Government reliance on "science" will also have lost total trust.