In my last job I was approached by media to ask if I could educate them about filtration in HVAC. I said, ‘Here’s a quick overview from an informed person, but I am not qualified to provide technical commentary on filtration or hvac. Happy to refer you to a competent engineer.’
I said that because I’m aerospace/electrical Eng and not a ventilation engineer.
Do I know more than the average person? Can I interpret standards outside my practice area? Yes and maybe. So why don’t I speak to the reporter and lend my voice?
Do I know more than the average person? Can I interpret standards outside my practice area? Yes and maybe. So why don’t I speak to the reporter and lend my voice?
Reason is in Code of Ethics rule 2, “Professional engineers and geoscientists shall undertake only work that they are competent to perform by virtue of their training and experience.” Speaking to the media about a technical subject is improper if it’s not w/i my practice areas.
Yet I repeatedly see infectious disease MDs offering sweeping opinions in public about the effectiveness of respirators mitigating disease transmission.
Being an expert in disease does not qualify you to speak about a highly engineered device whose function is based in physics.
Being an expert in disease does not qualify you to speak about a highly engineered device whose function is based in physics.
There is an entire profession dedicated to respiratory protection, industrial hygiene. There are engineers and scientists who spend entire careers developing filtration.
This is as symptom of a larger issue which is the dysfunctional hegemony of infectious disease policy makers.
This is as symptom of a larger issue which is the dysfunctional hegemony of infectious disease policy makers.
This is the same crew who shut down global experts in aerosol transport at the WHO in March 2020, telling Dr Morwaska that her statements on transmission of Covid were wrong. That error literally killed and disabled millions as it delayed introducing respiratory mitigations.
A core problem is medicine, as a profession, has no general duty of care to protect the public. It’s there on a physician/patient basis, but no broader. Plus their colleges are reluctant to take on complaints against MDs who are spouting utter nonsense.
We still see MDs stating respirators do not have much impact on disease transmission. I can’t say anything about that except it’s incredibly ignorant of reality, and reflects a narrow and asinine understanding of a very broad field of science.
That opinion is only sustainable by ignoring any knowledge that is produced outside the exceptionally narrow and highly specialized framing of evidence based medicine EBM. EBM is designed to detect low signal to noise ratio SNR signals in complex systems, like drug trials.
EBM is not intended to be used when physical parameters may be directly measured or observed. Engineering uses no RCTs because we use empirical applied science. Our design is based in physically observable properties. And even when we work with low SNR data it’s empirical.
Insisting that the body of work which literally transformed our lives entirely is ‘low quality mechanistic or observational evidence’ only reinforces to all of us outside EBM how awfully I’ll informed you all are. Those statements are continuing today, BTW.
For some, it’s clear that EBM is religion, a cult with its own rituals and entry requirements. Those outside are isolated from the one source of truth. To be clear, when EBM is used as an iconic standard that must be achieved for something to be true,
that is religion speaking not science.
Every one trusts our lives dozens of times daily to engineered systems that have never been subject to an RCT or EBM. In an urban area you literally can’t do anything without encountering an engineered system that is life safety impacting.
Every one trusts our lives dozens of times daily to engineered systems that have never been subject to an RCT or EBM. In an urban area you literally can’t do anything without encountering an engineered system that is life safety impacting.
‘Evidence based engineering’ is a nonsensical statement because everything we do is based in empirical evidence.
Like respirators, trusted for decades to protect lungs from all sorts of nasty stuff, including biopathogens.
Like respirators, trusted for decades to protect lungs from all sorts of nasty stuff, including biopathogens.
SNR or signal to noise ratio, refers to the amount of a signal of interest is present with respect to unwanted noise. Think of an AM radio station. Up close to the transmitter you have lots of music, little static. As you travel away, more static less music. High SNR to low.
It’s expressed in decibels, which isn’t really necessary to understand the concept. Detecting low SNR signals is a big part of electrical engineering. How do we still get signal from Very distant space probes?
It analogous to detecting the impact of a chemical on a living being
It analogous to detecting the impact of a chemical on a living being
h/t @GosiaGasperoPhD
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