OK, I am not a statistician by a long shot. As a physician, I think I am reasonably good at critically reading studies and basic stats, but I may not have the jargon down, and I may misunderstand even some basic stats. When I refer to a trend, I am saying that a study calculated, say, an odds ratio that was not 1, but the confidence interval included 1. Sometimes it is close enough to 1 that it seems clear there's nothing there, and we should embrace the null hypothesis. Other times, it's clear the results are diluted by study limitations. When I was on an IRB, we had a resident statistician who would frequently point out that a proposed study was underpowered to test the hypothesis they wanted to test. So they were never going to disprove the null hypothesis, whatever they found. Let's say their hypothesis was correct, but they were unable to clearly demonstrate it due to the study design. In that case they may find a "trend" toward their hypothesis being true, but their CI may still include the null hypothesis. If study finds this and was well-powered and properly designed, you're probably done. If not, the "trend" may be a signal that there may be something useful there to retool and study again.
I agree, yet we have often seen a study fail to prove something, and many people interpret it as "disproving" it. Most people aren't used to the precision and subtlety of the language here, and sometimes get annoyed that you're being lawyerly or something if you try to clarify for them. In the majority of the mask studies discussed in the video linked above, for example, they were not actually looking at masks vs no masks, so saying they "proved that masks did not work" was wrong on several levels. I can see how the video narrator sloppily made that leap, and then he simplified further to get an exciting conclusion. This was the main problem I was trying to point out.
I would say that what you're saying is true within the context of a specific study, but does not mean that the evidence or reality is not out there. If a study is underpowered and poorly designed, it may not be able to demonstrate that lifting weights makes you stronger, for example, yet other studies have shown this to be true, and we all would agree that it is essentially fact. I have seen many poorly designed studies that failed to find statistically significant results where these same results were later shown by larger or better-designed studies.
I agree that most people do things that don't make rational sense, and/or don't match their stated motives (I am a psychiatrist after all, I make a living off of this particular human discrepancy you might say). This is especially true of politicians, and I agree that politics and emotions clearly overtake rational thought for most people. I am not immune to this, but I do my best to consciously struggle against these tendencies, and I'm willing to change my mind based on new information. It's not always comfortable to do so. I'm glad that many people here, for example, still want to talk about the evidence and the science, and I don't think we should give that up just because so many people have essentially gone mad. It's easy and fun to say "we should follow the SCIENCE!" but following scientific findings in real time is a fool's errand. I'm sure you agree, and thanks for your thoughtful comments.
My personal views, based on experience combined with my reading of the evidence, are that surgical masks are likely modestly helpful at containing germs to the wearer. Combining this with rigorous hand hygiene and social distancing should further reduce the rate of covid spread, possibly to near zero if there were 100% proper compliance (which is of course unlikely). Also, N95 masks are likely quite effective at keeping germs like covid out of the mouth and nose of the wearer, but are only maximally effective when combined with full PPE. I saw COVID sweep rapidly through an inpatient hospital unit before we were using masks, infecting both patients and staff, and also saw that there were no new staff infections once patients had surgical masks and staff was using full PPE/N95, even though all patients on the unit were covid+. This experience biases me for sure. We may never have great evidence on some of these things, but we have to make decisions and act now, as it will take too long for high quality evidence to arrive in most cases, if it ever does.
It does annoy me that the masked vs unmasked factions seem to take it out on each other, since neither really have the facts or cost/benefit calculations entirely on their side. I have been berated in person by people for wearing and also for not wearing a mask, in fact. It (the berating) didn't help anyone or change my behavior. I do my thing as I see fit, and offer opinions only when they are sought (or, in the case of this forum, when I think I have something useful to add). If someone asks me why I am wearing or not wearing a mask in a particular situation, I'll explain myself. If they scold me, I roll my eyes and move along. If I am not willing to change my mind as a result of a particular conversation/argument, I generally don't bother with it. I don't like to debate in bad faith. Once it's clear that the other person is a zealot who will not engage in some legit back-and-forth and is unwilling or unable to change their mind, I'm out. Some people might enjoy those kind of interactions, and at times I have too. Lately, though, I have other places to devote my energy. Again, despite a fair amount of posts in this thread getting heated, I think there has been some good discussion here. Thanks again Rob for your comments.