>I did not read the person's comment as needing detailed links and explanations on Scientific Method 101

Youre missing the point. Bringing up "scientific method 101" is a step backwards, as this person's actual request was to see the scientific method in action, not to have the concept of it described to them.

>just to repeat all the searching and link-sourcing dozens to hundreds of other commenters have already been doing across the replies to both that person and OP.

No one has replied with a link / reference to this person yet, as of an hour ago.

>Since you are concerned they didn't get answers out of the many other comments doing exactly that, you can provide the answers you feel they still need.

I don't have the expertise to do that. Is that supposed to be a gotcha? If anything you're slightly gotcha-ing yourself by saying it would take you a long time to find appropriate sources, and exposing your own overconfidence. Not every scientific misprediction gets analyzed scientifically, so without already being familiar with the appropriate sources, you can't know whether there are appropriate sources.

You'd think that on r/askscience, people would accept the idea of answering questions with actual scientific data, or an explanation that the data doesn't exist, and would understand the non-triviality of providing the correct answer.

>In fact, a few people replying to the same initial comment as me are also talking about the scientific method and public reactions

Virologists are rare on the internet. Clueless know-it-alls are common. An abundance of replies from the common type of person doesn't indicate that such replies were particularly warranted, compared to the uncommon type. People act within their capabilities. Sometimes that drowns out other people, to ill effect.

>I am potentially coming across here as angry or passive-aggressive

I am just explaining how your comment was indirectly harmful. Save your back-to-basics warning for suspicious questions about science, not all questions about science.

"Why does science say X" is a normal question. "Why did science say X, but now says Y" is also a normal question.

"Why did science say <thing it obviously didn't>, but now says Y" is a suspicious question. "Why did science say <thing that is obviously compatible with Y>, but now says Y" is a suspicious question.

Like, post this all day on questions about mask or vaccine efficacy, where trolls try to pretend masks were supposed to 100% prevent transmission, or vaccines were supposed to prevent all sickness for everyone. But this guy, he's just asking about mutation research, not saying anything about that research being untrustworthy or tainted.

However, a red flag for fake science at work is if when asked to explain its predictions, or changes in its predictions, no details are provided.

Of course this is not the case for covid-19 science. But the person asked a legitimate question about the state of the research. You don't have to give conspiracy theorists ammo by responding with a non-answer like that. Just say which early studies indicated low mutability, and which later studies or observations indicated high mutability.

Only if the feed you use censors the commercials. And if it blurs out the on-field advertisements. And if it mutes the audio when the the commentators shout out sponsors. Otherwise, just don't watch, who cares.