Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?

[wakibaki]

Yes, agreed - it's the appeal of an engineer to "not question" what he thinks works.

 

What, I'm the only one who thinks that when you switch the switch, the light comes on?

[Don Hills]

What, I'm the only one who thinks that when you switch the switch, the light comes on?

 

Indeed. Do I have to go back to first principles (Copernicus?) to confirm that the sun is going to come up tomorrow before setting my alarm clock? If we have a theory that fits the observed facts we use it unless we start noticing differences in some cases. Newtonian physics is still quite adequate for most everyday usage, even though we now know that it deviates at relativistic speeds.

[esldude]

What, I'm the only one who thinks that when you switch the switch, the light comes on?

 

Yes, makes you wonder what some folks think is appropriate. If we extended to the point of caricature, though actually using the same philosophy some espouse, we would never be fully confident the light will come on. We would need to continually be open to the concept our science and the resulting engineering of electrical lights was not fully knowledge. That perhaps it remain open this whole idea of electricity and contacts, and resistance and on and on forever.

 

Yet some of the same group of people, wishing to always question everything, no matter how well established by evidence, research and science, are willing to call it into question based upon a few ad hoc empirical experiences and a whole lot of conjecture. Then proceed without ever rigorously investigating the conjecture, to make products, follow practices, accept results, and then go into yet another round of univestigated conjecture, resulting in more 'advanced' assumptions about what is good practice if the conjecture (now two layers deep) is true and corroborate them with naive open listening sessions. To go further and place such questionable practice up on a pedestal at least equal to if not superior to more regimented methods. You know.....listen for yourself and decide, don't be swayed by those EE types that don't remain open minded. Well all curious indeed.

 

Using that approach we could end up with lighting, built to a higher standard, using exotic components, some of which have "been shown" to create better emotional results than plain old EE type lighting. Should I even mention a "night and day difference". You know where you have a measurably bright light shining, but due to its non-high end construction, the light seems less light with contrasts to dark less so. High end lighting showing more there is there.

[Allan F]

Yet some of the same group of people, wishing to always question everything, no matter how well established by evidence, research and science, are willing to call it into question based upon a few ad hoc empirical experiences and a whole lot of conjecture...

 

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...

 

Nothing personal, but IMO the forum needs another repetitious rehash of the above as much as the average normal person 'needs' a venereal disease. Give us a break!

[jabbr]

 

Using that approach we could end up with lighting, built to a higher standard, using exotic components, some of which have "been shown" to create better emotional results than plain old EE type lighting. Should I even mention a "night and day difference". You know where you have a measurably bright light shining, but due to its non-high end construction, the light seems less light with contrasts to dark less so. High end lighting showing more there is there.

 

Yeah actually.

[jabbr]

What, I'm the only one who thinks that when you switch the switch, the light comes on?

 

Sometimes. Mostly.

[mmerrill99]

Yes, agreed - it's the appeal of an engineer to "not question" what he thinks works.

We have audio reproduction systems that are designed according to engineering rules - the correlation to auditory perception is very tenuous - yet we are being told to not question this And yet the end purpose of audio reproduction & the way we evaluate it, is to judge how well it satisfies our auditory perception - the full working of which is still to be analysed. So we have a system being developed to perform a function - a function that we don't yet know the rules of. Somewhere along the line the concept of what is the target function of a system has been lost & instead the engineering goal has been substituted.

 

Yes, agreed - it's the appeal of an engineer to "not question" what he thinks works.

What, I'm the only one who thinks that when you switch the switch, the light comes on?

When you extract a part of my post out of context & then try to be smart about it - it doesn't serve well you or others credibility.

[sandyk]

What, I'm the only one who thinks that when you switch the switch, the light comes on?

 

Better still, I have a light that comes on when the power goes off !

[elcorso]

In my country is very common move the switch to on and no light

 

I repeat and repeat the following question: Is science established a fixed entity and then not worth the new research?

 

I do not think that the great scientific researchers have won their Nobel Prizes following this way of thinking.

 

The "science" would become very boring, and boring become repetitive comments from some members "in the name of science".

 

If you carefully analyze these pseudoscientific have nothing of scientists and are using "scientific" arguments to justify what can not adequately perceive.

 

Roch

[mmerrill99]

Yes, makes you wonder what some folks think is appropriate. If we extended to the point of caricature, ........

That attempt at caricature was already in Waki's post - so no need to try extend it further

[wakibaki]

When you extract a part of my post out of context & then try to be smart about it - it doesn't serve well you or others credibility.

 

What? You don't think the light will come on, or if it does it will be shown to do so for reasons more useful in this context than Maxwell's equations, and my credibility's at threat?

[mav52]

Better still, I have a light that comes on when the power goes off !

 

And I have lights that come on all by themselves at dusk and go off at dawn all due to science.

[jabbr]

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.01881v1.pdf

 

...and not a single one discusses whether lights will go on...

[sandyk]

And I have lights that come on all by themselves at dusk and go off at dawn all due to science.

 

I only felt the need for an automatic light (12v 7.2AH SLA battery powered) that comes on when there is a blackout, due mainly to storms, so I DIY'ed such an animal. I didn't use Pseudo science (so beloved of several here) in it's construction though, or feel the need to also have it's operation dependent on ambient light.

[Teresa]

Using that approach we could end up with lighting, built to a higher standard, using exotic components, some of which have "been shown" to create better emotional results than plain old EE type lighting. Should I even mention a "night and day difference". You know where you have a measurably bright light shining, but due to its non-high end construction, the light seems less light with contrasts to dark less so. High end lighting showing more there is there.

 

Actually I really like Spiral light bulbs, they last an extremely long time and provide more comfortable light, especially for reading. The reason given is the spiral shape provides better light distribution than other CFLs. They cost more but in my experience they are worth it and I believe the cost is lower in the long run because of their long life. Exotic works in other things besides audio.

 

[Paul R]

Yes, makes you wonder what some folks think is appropriate. If we extended to the point of caricature, though actually using the same philosophy some espouse, we would never be fully confident the light will come on. We would need to continually be open to the concept our science and the resulting engineering of electrical lights was not fully knowledge. That perhaps it remain open this whole idea of electricity and contacts, and resistance and on and on forever.

 

Yet some of the same group of people, wishing to always question everything, no matter how well established by evidence, research and science, are willing to call it into question based upon a few ad hoc empirical experiences and a whole lot of conjecture. Then proceed without ever rigorously investigating the conjecture, to make products, follow practices, accept results, and then go into yet another round of univestigated conjecture, resulting in more 'advanced' assumptions about what is good practice if the conjecture (now two layers deep) is true and corroborate them with naive open listening sessions. To go further and place such questionable practice up on a pedestal at least equal to if not superior to more regimented methods. You know.....listen for yourself and decide, don't be swayed by those EE types that don't remain open minded. Well all curious indeed.

 

Using that approach we could end up with lighting, built to a higher standard, using exotic components, some of which have "been shown" to create better emotional results than plain old EE type lighting. Should I even mention a "night and day difference". You know where you have a measurably bright light shining, but due to its non-high end construction, the light seems less light with contrasts to dark less so. High end lighting showing more there is there.

 

 

Oh, you really don't want to get into lighting. A reef tank requires a pretty good analouge of sunlight, which until recently meant hot, noisy, and extremely bright metal halide lighting, or in some cases, a bank of flourescents with carefully adjusted frequencies. And in all cases, regular replacement of light bulbs. Expensive, and very necessary, though the guy with tge 10 gal tank and goldfish had trouble comprehending why.

 

Now, we can generally do the same thing with much less troublesome LED lighting. Well under a grand for small tanks even. The goldfish and guppy crowd still does not understand.

 

There are probably some parallels to audio here.

[Paul R]

Actually I really like Spiral light bulbs, they last an extremely long time and provide more comfortable light, especially for reading. The reason given is the spiral shape provides better light distribution than other CFLs. They cost more but in my experience they are worth it and I believe the cost is lower in the long run because of their long life. Exotic works in other things besides audio.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]17493[/ATTACH]

 

Might want to try some of the LED bulbs, like the Cree bulbs from Home Depot. Nice light without the annoying flicker. (If you can see or are sensitive to the flicker from CF bulbs that is. I am.)

[jabbr]

Oh, you really don't want to get into lighting. A reef tank requires a pretty good analouge of sunlight, which until recently meant hot, noisy, and extremely bright metal halide lighting, or in some cases, a bank of flourescents with carefully adjusted frequencies.

 

You know you can't see all those frequencies don't you? :)

[mav52]

I only felt the need for an automatic light (12v 7.2AH SLA battery powered) that comes on when there is a blackout, due mainly to storms, so I DIY'ed such an animal. I didn't use Pseudo science (so beloved of several here) in it's construction though, or feel the need to also have it's operation dependent on ambient light.

 

So your lights ( blubs) are not attributed to some form of physical science

[Paul R]

You know you can't see all those frequencies don't you? :)

 

Just because I cannot see 'em doesn't mean they don't have a powerful effect on the tank and my enjoyment of it.

 

Without 'em, the corals and other animals will die.

 

-Paul

[Jud]

Yes, makes you wonder what some folks think is appropriate.

 

It does make one wonder to see how some folks treat science. Articles are published by research scientists in peer reviewed academic journals, yet laypeople on audio sites know so much more they not only disagree, but can point out how these researchers and all the referees are completely wrong in elementary ways. There's Oohashi on ultrasonics; Kunchur on ability of human hearing to discriminate in the time domain. And then there are those who persist in old attitudes that science and engineering have left behind: people who insist on arguing about whether a 44.1kHz sampling rate is just as good as a 96kHz or 192kHz sampling rate, and citing outliers like Dan Lavry saying anything over ~60kHz is wasted or deleterious, decades after the industry has standardized on 352.8 and 384kHz (which are further converted to mHz rates); people who insist that filter designs are provably adequate when they model human hearing in ways that scientific experiments and a peer reviewed journal paper about them have shown it doesn't behave (the Magnasco and Oppenheim paper).

 

It would of course be trivial for me to find similar examples from "the other side's" thinking.

 

John Swenson once said something here I found very perceptive. (OK, more than once, John - that didn't come out quite right! ) I'm going to try to paraphrase it, though I won't say it nearly as elegantly and concisely as John. It was that laypeople on audio sites argue bitterly over topics that neither understands well enough to have the right answer, while the truth is something orthogonal to what either side is saying.

 

As laypeople, we might pick up enough knowledge and experience from a site like this to be helpful to others (something I know you've often done, Dennis). But enough to definitively say others are wrong about some scientific principle that's supposed to be the last word on an audio engineering question? I'd be skeptical of that. So for anyone who likes to be right, you're more likely to achieve that goal here when you're trying to be helpful.

 

IMHO.

[Tony Lauck]

Just because I cannot see 'em doesn't mean they don't have a powerful effect on the tank and my enjoyment of it.

 

Without 'em, the corals and other animals will die.

 

-Paul

 

Yeah, that tank is a highly non-linear system.

[Paul R]

Yeah, that tank is a highly non-linear system.

 

Highly Chaotic is how I would choose to say it - balanced chaos. Gads - that could also describe three audiophiles in the same room...

[wakibaki]

It does make one wonder to see how some folks treat science. Articles are published by research scientists in peer reviewed academic journals, yet laypeople on audio sites know so much more they not only disagree, but can point out how these researchers and all the referees are completely wrong in elementary ways. There's Oohashi on ultrasonics; Kunchur on ability of human hearing to discriminate in the time domain. And then there are those who persist in old attitudes that science and engineering have left behind: people who insist on arguing about whether a 44.1kHz sampling rate is just as good as a 96kHz or 192kHz sampling rate, and citing outliers like Dan Lavry saying anything over ~60kHz is wasted or deleterious, decades after the industry has standardized on 352.8 and 384kHz (which are further converted to mHz rates); people who insist that filter designs are provably adequate when they model human hearing in ways that scientific experiments and a peer reviewed journal paper about them have shown it doesn't behave (the Magnasco and Oppenheim paper).

 

It would of course be trivial for me to find similar examples from "the other side's" thinking.

 

John Swenson once said something here I found very perceptive. (OK, more than once, John - that didn't come out quite right! ) I'm going to try to paraphrase it, though I won't say it nearly as elegantly and concisely as John. It was that laypeople on audio sites argue bitterly over topics that neither understands well enough to have the right answer, while the truth is something orthogonal to what either side is saying.

 

As laypeople, we might pick up enough knowledge and experience from a site like this to be helpful to others (something I know you've often done, Dennis). But enough to definitively say others are wrong about some scientific principle that's supposed to be the last word on an audio engineering question? I'd be skeptical of that. So for anyone who likes to be right, you're more likely to achieve that goal here when you're trying to be helpful.

 

IMHO.

 

Aha! The dispatch of FET-500 has brought another worm out of the woodwork, to be revealed as... ...another I-do-science-better-than-the-scientists closet subjectivist. Is there a tree 'round here?

[jabbr]

John Swenson once said something here I found very perceptive. (OK, more than once, John - that didn't come out quite right! ) I'm going to try to paraphrase it, though I won't say it nearly as elegantly and concisely as John. It was that laypeople on audio sites argue bitterly over topics that neither understands well enough to have the right answer, while the truth is something orthogonal to what either side is saying.

 

+1 but not just laypeople and not just audio...