Nglazer:
It's not at all like the "debates" over climate change and evolution, in which the serious scientific community is virtually 100% agreed that yes, there is man made climate change and yes, all life evolved from a common ancestor. There is nothing like unanimity, and especially nothing like agreement upon the explanatory mechanisms at work, in the power cord case. And, unlike the cases of evolution and climate change, most of the people who have strong positive opinions have either an economic or a vanity motive for saying what they say. In contrast, in the climate and evolution cases it's the motives of the deniers that are most obviously suspect. Finally, while you might be able to make up your own mind by experiment in the cable case (though never underestimate the power of psychoacoustics), the parallel claim for climate change and evolution would be absurd.
It's not at all like the "debates" over climate change and evolution, in which the serious scientific community is virtually 100% agreed that yes, there is man made climate change and yes, all life evolved from a common ancestor. There is nothing like unanimity, and especially nothing like agreement upon the explanatory mechanisms at work, in the power cord case. And, unlike the cases of evolution and climate change, most of the people who have strong positive opinions have either an economic or a vanity motive for saying what they say. In contrast, in the climate and evolution cases it's the motives of the deniers that are most obviously suspect. Finally, while you might be able to make up your own mind by experiment in the cable case (though never underestimate the power of psychoacoustics), the parallel claim for climate change and evolution would be absurd.