Those that are so adamant, regarding their beloved theories/opinions/biases(regardless of the source), while refusing to acknowledge that ONLY experimentation(the heart of the Scientific Method), provides PROOF, regarding anything discussed. Most of those are proffering their opinions, without ever having tried what’s being discussed. What you hold true, in your listening room, is all that matters. Experiment and trust your ears.
That’s a common misstatement about the nature of science (typically used by people who place undue levels of confidence in their own subjectivity).
"Try it for yourself and see if it works" is an empirical method.
But it’s not the SCIENTIFIC empirical method.
Everything that underlies the power of science, it’s success, and what makes science more reliable lies in that difference.
The problem is that people are prone to all sorts of biases and cognitive errors and laziness when discerning cause and effect. "I wished on my magic crystal last month that I’d get a job...and what do you know, I got a job, my crystal must have done it!" "I put on my magnetic bracelet, and eventually my cold went away. The bracelet works!"
In other words, we tend to be very sloppy in attending to all the variables in our explanations, which is why countless contradictory belief systems flourish.
The Scientific method arose largely as a response to this problem by proposing hypothesizes with testable consequences, using parsimony to select among explanations, controlling for known or possible other causes, etc.
This is why, as I pointed out to rodman before, a scientific study on a new drug would not consist of simply giving him the drug and asking rodman if rodman feels like it works. The test would control the effects of bias, placebo effect and/or other known variables. The work of a scientist who did sloppy work, not controlling for known variables, would be dismissed, for good reason.
If rodman *really* wanted to test his findings consistent with the scientific method, he’d be acknowledging the reality of bias, and controlling for it. Blind testing being such a method. A method he and many audiophiles seem to instead reject. (Which is ironic, since the more rigorously controlled method would ACTUALLY rely on "trusting your ears" and not your "eyes and ears.")
There is of course nothing wrong with just buying gear and trying it, feeling like it makes a difference we like, and buying it. As I’ve pointed out a million times, I don’t go trying to test everything I buy with scientific rigor.
But let’s be intellectually honest and understand and admit when we aren’t doing so with a "scientific" mindset. And it’s intellectually honest to calibrate our claims and beliefs with the quality of evidence we have.The problem arises when people simply insist their subjective inferences aren’t or can’t be wrong because "my ears don’t lie! you can’t tell ME I didn’t hear it," which is a plain refusal to face the reality of the strength of sighted biases.
