I'll take an audiophile over a theist any day That is until audiophiles claim the superiority of electrically encoded binary data through titanium braided gold wire should be taught in K-12.

Its NOT in your school system!?

We do need audiopiles, just not the ones that sell science out for the once-almighty dollar.



Yup, all theists believe the same. That's why there is only one religion in the whole wide world.

Here's a question for you - are there any people who believe in both God and Evolution?

I think I (and Arny) see a lot more of it than the average HA-er, which is why the patter of 'why do you care so much/let them buy|say what they want/can't we all get along' posts sometimes exasperates me. I think some haven't a clue how pervasive and entrenched this nonsense is, in both print and online audio bloviating.





I've seen a regrettably great number of engineers embrace creationism, so clearly and engineering degree's no vaccine against teh stupid.

Yeah: I know a professional astronomer who's also a Biblical literalist. His mathematics is perfectly OK, I believe, it's just that he'll sometimes put quote marks round words implying a billion-year age for the universe. But the point is, not that people will believe on a completely different basis outside their area of technical competence, but that they'll let faith-and/or-woo blind them within their technical domains.

What I was meaning is that some people have a naive belief that someone with physics quals should somehow be reclaimable, so people are spending more time on Atkinson than he deserves, out of some yearning to reclaim him for science, when it just ain't going to happen. I think it's akin to the belief that the way to stop fraud in business is to teach business ethics.

Wow. Very 'tolerant'.

G²

Since you put 'tolerant' in quotes, I suspect you are being sarcastic. Which might make sense if I had actually advocated tolerance of the views I referred to, but since I haven't , it doesn't. If I've misunderstood, please enlighten me.

Do you realize you're posting on a forum that doesn't tolerate purely subjective claims of audio difference?

Why should aggressive ignorance and stupidity and ideological anti-science, as exemplified by creationism, be 'tolerated' (by which I suspect you also mean 'respected')?

(Btw, if you're about to launch into 'critique' of evolutionary biology, or a defense of creationism or intelligent design, please don't bother; just go away)

He wants his own facts as well as his own opinions!

Tolerating nonsense simply slows down human development, so in the end everyone suffers. It also debases actual research and discovery, because it puts ignorance on the same level as knowledge.

I really don't think that calling members' religious beliefs "stupid" has a place on this forum.

Let's keep this "topic" (why all the audiophile bashing recently, isn't it just easy pickings?) on track, and leave religion out of it.

I'm not sure that these threads are a step forward for Hydrogen Audio.

NB: I am an athiest, but I try to respect people's right to choose, be it religion, hairstyle, or music genre.

There's a difference between attacking an idea and attacking a person for believing that idea.
Quite often there's a strange displacement going on while people are bashing each other:
"I'm not bashing you; I'm bashing your idea." OUCH!

I totally agree with Synthetic Soul, all these attacks damage HA. Furthermore, attention generally gives credence. i.e. why attack something you're not threatened by, thus by virtue of this kind of vitriolic attention one gives credence to the very ideas one is attempting to defeat. There is a profound connection between power and attention; if all attend to the leader the leader has power, if all ignore the leader the leader has none. With that in mind, you're giving audiophiles a lot of attention. Finally, if Dawkins really understood evolution he'd understand that "one who is always fighting dragons eventually becomes one" (quote paraphrased). There's plenty of dragon action on these audiophile bashing threads.

C.

Because it's entertaining, if for no other reason. Steve Nugent and people like him (so-called audiophools) are somehow both entertaining and infuriating at the same time. Entertaining in the sense that their views are often laughably silly and infuriating in the sense that they are often viewed as authority figures on matters concerning audio (more often than not because they assert themselves as such).

Creationism involves claims about the natural world, not just the supernatural. I dont' care if it's anyone's religious belief. Why should beliefs be sacrosanct simply because they are 'religious'.
(Btw, not all religions are creationist)


Btw, *members'* religious beliefs include creationism at HA? Holy shit, I hope not.




Subjectivist audiophilia and religious belief aren't that far apart. (Not all audiophiles are subjectivists). Subjective report of audio difference gets frowned on here, but creationism gets a pass because it often comes wrapped in a religious bow?




Oh, stop being such a hand-wringer. You're on a forum that 'respects' reality-testing and does not 'respect'
purely subjective reports of audio performance. In fact it bans people who persistently 'choose' to post them.

I suggest you get over it.

I am attacking an idea and the people who promulgate it. It's disingenuous to claim that they can always be dissociated, and to expect to offend no one when you claim, .e.g. 'the audible effects of cable lifters are nonsense'. Those with emotional (and financial) investment in the utility of cable lifters will be offended, depend on it. Those who believe that the earth was created 6,000 years ago will be offended when you say that IDEA is absurd and compeltel;y contradicted by all of the scientific evidence.

But what *particular* persons am I attacking in the post above that seems to have set you and a few others off?



The 'let's ignore it otherwise we give it credence' tactic hasn't worked too well in the evolution/creationism war. We shouldn't *tolerate* letting the wrong side of the argument dominate the argument in the public arena.


And if I may ramp it up a few notches, in an internet age, do you advocate that we 'ignore' the ideas proumulgated by racialist and religious fundamentalists, and 'respect' their views,even if we disagree with them? How do you draw the line?


(I have to wonder at this response to a post that simply says there's 1) a lot more nonsense in audiophilia than perhaps some HAers know and 2) an engineering degree is no vaccine against believing patently stupid things ,like creationism. Have I managed to unearth a substratum of creationist/ID-believing engineers on HA?)

I doubt it.

EDIT:


Who's this WE? Sounds like you're part of some army fighting a grand war of ideas (most people who fight are actually fighting their own phantoms). Personally, I'm not attracted to racist or religious fundementalist ideas, they're nothing to do with me, so I don't engage in them, the same goes for golf. Conversely music is relevant to my life so I get on with that.

You can't control other people, only yourself, everyone is responsible for their own mind, so let them get on with it. Sure if it directly affects you, like if some group or other tries to force me to worship anyone or anything (diety, scientist or object) I'll resist. [EDIT 2] That's where I draw the line. But who's forcing you to do anything? [/EDIT2]

So to answer your question, I don't respect a racist for his/her views, but I respect their right to believe what they want. Furthermore, such views, beliefs, theories are based on ignorance, and ignorance always brings suffering and harsh lessons, so it takes care of itself, either people learn or they keep getting burned. There's nothing to be done, but to live your life and let others live theirs.

C.

Man, you gotta be kidding me. Open up any history book and see how the "suffering and harsh lessons" get meted out to many more folks than just the ignoramuses who believe whatever nonsense it is they espouse, typically many times over. So much for it taking care of itself.

As far as this applies to audio equipment, if I spent large sums on cables because of salesmen, trade magazines, etc, and came to realize the people I thought were authorities were wrong, I'd feel a fool and pine for the lost cash. Wouldn't you?

edit: Another thing about spending large sums on snake oil and then turning into an objectivist later -- having to answer guests when they ask, e.g. what that LP demagnetizer does and how much did it cost. Also why all your CDs have got green ink slathered on them. I suspect the desire to avoid this kind of embarrassment is a strong motivating factor that keeps self-professed audiophiles in the subjectivist camp. Especially with this recession and all.

Euphonic, having blind faith in the word of authorities such as salesmen and trade magazines is ignorant. The harsh lesson is you spend excess cash unnecessarily. If you learn from the mistake it's a worthwhile lesson, if you don't you'll get ripped off again. So yes, that's a good example.

C.

I was just being hypothetical -- I've never bought into that kinda stuff myself!


Nobody's trying to force anyone anywhere. But it's a mistake to say the spread of misbegotten audiophilia doesn't affect you in any way. It's a good thing if everyone involved -- manufacturers, advertisers, salespeople and consumers -- funnelled money into things that actually work.

I assumed you were, and so was I. But that's my point, we're unaffected (because we've chosen to be unaffected, i.e. we've chosen to ensure we're educated enough not to fall for the rubbish).


Absolutely agree. However, when Mr Greedy meets Mr Stupid the easy (fraudulant) buck is way more tempting than the innovative and productive, honest alternative that you endorse.

I can't convince Mr Greedy to be less greedy, and I can't force Mr Stupid to understand what he doesn't want to understand, but I can control my own greed and eliminate my own stupidity (and HA helps with the latter) and then I've done my bit to bring sanity to the audio world. My point being, that the game is actually won by not playing it (or rather by removing oneself as an active component part of the problem).

C.

I find this post intriguing.

First thing is what do you (or anyone who mentions it) mean by "god"? Is it the Judeo-christian one? Zeus? Flying Spaghetti Monster? Secondly, a small quibble: Evolution is not something that needs to be believed.

The first point is why "are you an atheist?" is such a loaded, but meaningless at the same time, question. I am an "atheist" concerning all gods I've been presented. But many theists and wishy-washy agnostics assume that "atheism" is some form of religious belief too. "Agnosticism" is not the default, neutral position about the god of the bible, who if existed, the universe would be much different, and against whom there is plenty of evidence. Atheism is the default. Babies are born a-theist (and a-pretty-much-everything-else).

So yes, there are people who believe in "god" and accept evolution. I would call them deists. If they're not, and are theists (a god who intervenes), I would think they've compartmentalized their beliefs, unless their god meddles with anything except biology. One such case appears to be that of Ken Miller, who regardless is one of the most admirable American scientists today (even for many "atheists" like me). When he tries to explain his religious beliefs though (catholicism) he always comes up short, and making no sense. He can't both believe in mammal male parthenogenesis and biology as it is known today. He can't accept miracles anecdotically (and which aren't?) and embrace the scientific method, unless there is some pretty strong compartmentalizing there. To his credit, he always keeps his religious beliefs to himself.

One more extreme example is that of Francis Collins, infamously publishing a whole book about his god, and how he came to believe (involves some kind of waterfall anecdote). Do you think he's being intellectually honest with his own research?

Isn't it revealed truth that all gods are the same - patently false and creations of man? '=)



The idea that atheists tend to be thesists, who merely believe in some other god or God is not a universal truth. It's just one of those things that one sees going around a lot.



Babies are born unable to feed or clean themselves. That they should also be unable to do something as abstract as think for themselves should be no surprise. I don't know how much coherent philosophy we can buitd on just the behavior of babies. What some religions and schools of thought do build on the behavior of babies is the idea that ignorance on the scale that we see in babies is not a good thing, and should be dealt with in a thoughtful, loving way as soon as possible.



Oh, so you finally do answer the question, after first ladeling out a bunch of what seems to be nonsense. Well, too bad about the nonsense but good that you can put this together after being prodded to.



I would call that very narrow and poorly-informed thinking.



Your ignorance of religious beliefs is really pretty complete. Ever wonder why some people pray? They generally do so because they believe in a god who meddles with *everything*, including biology. Isn't sickness a biological situation?
Maybe you never noticed that very many people pray, particularly when things aren't going their way, and particularly when they or a loved one are sick or injured.



Why not?



Why?

What's a miracle? Aren't miracles something like UFOs? You know of course that UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. It has long been known that we would vastly reduce the number of UFO reports if we taught people how to properly identify what appear to be flying objects, right? As we've understood more and more about how the body works, the number of apparent miracles should have decreased, right?



If we're going to talk about people named Collins, I'm more impressed with Jim Collins who seems to have been able to apply his Catholic beliefts to modern life and formulate working organizational strategies.

If being Christian is so bad for the brain, how was Newton able to do what he did while being Christian?

BTW I didn't intentionally cherry-pick your statements - I kept getting these nastygrams about too many blocks of quotes, and just pulled things out until it went away.

Depends on how you define "purely subjective", no?

I have been known to call myself a "reliable subjectivist". I favor judging equipment by *purely subjective* means, and by *purely subjective* I mean subjective means that are as reliable and as free of bias as is possible.

Have I gotten into trouble with TOS 8, yet? I don't think so! ;-)

If you haven't figured it out yet from our last exchange, compared to me, John Atkinson is a flaming objectivist. His problems with being clueless about reliablity and bias are very serious, but they are separate matters as compared to his actual demonstrated belief in the primacy of test equipment-based evaluations.

Well what was intriguing and (kind of) surprising for me is to learn that you're apparently a theist, and apparently a christian one. I didn't say that being christian like F. Collins makes you dishonest or less intelectual. Just intellectually dishonest, which is different, he can't square his religious belief with science he practices (genetics, IIRC). And I think you're wrong about some of your answers, and some misinterpretations of what I said, I'll get to it when I get home. Shift is over!

Gee, thanks for the "lesson". I just don't see the need to be offensive toward members whose religion involves Creationism, when this topic is filed under "CD Hardware/Software"... I can't help thinking that you're bordering on, or have passed into TOS #2 and/or TOS #5.

See note above regarding the forum in which this thread exists.

Again, note the use of "audio-perormance" in your response, and feel free to re-read the note above.

This forum has been created for users to discuss audio-related topics. I don't think that members' unrelated beliefs need to be attacked along the way.

If you really feel the need to assert your intellectual superiority I suggest you take it to Off Topic, where you guys can beat your chests as much as you please.

I suggest you go back and see the audio context in which I brought up the analogy to creationism in the first place. At which point some readers apparently got more than a little verklempt and then it was off to the races for several. Perhaps you'll be careful to warn them all of TOS violations too? And btw, should we check all of our claims here on HA about the operation of the natural world to make sure no religion, somewhere, would consider them offensive? Fact: the world simply was not created 6,000 years ago. If noting that, or using it in an analogy to crazy beliefs in audio, is a TOS violation, then there's something seriously wrong with the TOS.

Better to say, he can't reconcile them without recourse to magical thinking.

It's a moot issue, since he doesn't try to. Collins doesn't introduce religion into his scientific papers. He's a good scientist. (And one whom, AFAICT, is not a Biblical literalist either...or at least not an Old Testament literalist)

I'm not saying that all gods are the same and patently false. Simply, I start with nothing. Different types of god are presented to me and I find them lacking evidence. Most of them even, I find there's evidence against. What's religious about that? What's the revelation I'm believing in? Am I not still without gods ("a-theist"?). When you ask if I'm an atheist, you're gonna have to tell me what I'm supposedly denying.

I agree that you see it going around. "A lot"? I don't know about that, but it should be different for both of us. What one also sees going around a lot though, is religious people and agnostics that assume right away that "atheism" is the polar opposite of religion, a kind of belief system itself. It is not, at least not for me and many others. I don't call myself an atheist because of what I've already explained, but I would fall squarely in the "atheist" category for theists and agnostics. In our worldview, you don't need to deny gods, they simply aren't considered as explanations for anything anymore. And this is not based on "revelation", it's just based on what we've learned in the past centuries... all the thousands of times science has pushed away farther and farther religious explanations for natural phenomena.


I think you misunderstand. I didn't say that because babies don't do something, it's false. What I meant was that belief in a particular god is learned, and very suspiciously, people overwhelmingly tend to learn the truth of their god based on geographic location or parental beliefs. And you're turning around my argument by implying that ignorance of religious beliefs of atheists is the same as ignorance of religious beliefs in babies? Well you need to establish that there's something real to be known in the first place, don't you? With clarity please.

I don't think it was nonsense. I think it was pretty clear. And that was what I meant by "loaded question". "Are you an atheist?" cannot be answered first without the caveat of explaining what you mean by "god".

And how is that not compartmentalizing? We all are prone to do that. If you accept evolution as we know it, you have to accept that it doesn't need any kind of guidance. It doesn't rule out a god that makes it seem as if he doesn't exist, but then you'd be pretty much a deist at least in respect to a god that doesn't meddle with biology.

And again, these claims by religious people of "ignorance" of religious beliefs needs to stop. What am I ignorant about? I have been theist in the past. I know the religion I used to be a part of. The thing with religious "knowledge" is that you can always move the goalposts and claim you know something that the one who doesn't agree with you doesn't know. Come on.

Because biology doesn't allow for mammal male parthenogenesis. You need somewhere to get that Y chromosome from. It doesn't even allow for "regular" parthenogenesis for "higher" mammals. He can believe it of course (I don't think he does, actually, but he still says he's catholic and believes in his god), but both can't be logically possible, thus, he'd be compartmentalizing.

It hasn't decreased? You'd be hard-pressed to find neuroscientists, physicists or biologists in general who believe in miracles. Miller and Collins are exceptions.

And miracles are not unidentified. They are identified with high presumption and little evidence. Miracles are events that are assumed to be of divine origin/purpose. They are statements of truth about something that happened in nature.
Again, I didn't say that. What I would say though, is that religious belief can limit scientific inquiry. His achievements in physics weren't as damaging to his religion as, say, Darwin's. After Darwin, man was no longer special. Einstein, although not a theist, believed that the universe had to be static, hence his proposal of his "biggest blunder" in his later words, of the cosmological constant, to counter the implication from General Relativity that the universe had to be either expanding or contracting.

Perhaps you could explain to me how this is (a) an analogy, and (b) acceptable and relevant to this forum?

How can a bona fide engineer believe a crazy thing about audio, when the science says otherwise?

vs

How can a bona fide engineer believe a crazy thing about geology/biology when the science says otherwise?

Point being, I've witnessed the latter, and often enough to not be surprised at the former.

If I had actually witnessed engineers espousing astrology, I could have just as well used that example. But I haven't.

But there is no audio context. You are basically saying "I can believe that engineers can believe stupid things, as I know many that are Creationists": nothing related to the subject at hand, merely a pop at Creationism, pure and simple.

Anyway, I've moved most of the posts into this OT thread, so feel free to discuss this further without my hand-wringing, as long as all participants treat their peers with respect.

Title suggestion:

An excuse to release pent up frustrations
by "debating" points of impossible resolution and dubious interest (or "the thinkers equivalent to football hooliganism")



C.

No, because it followed directly from an expression of incredulity that engineers could believe stupid things about audio.

Oh for fuck's sweet sake. If anyone here seriously thinks the claims of creationists are 'impossible to resolve' then I have to wonder what they are doing on a forum that requires adherence to accepted scientific methods for 'resolving' the question of audio difference.

It's possible to be so 'open minded' that your brains evaporate.

Krabapple, you're the one who keeps bringing up creationism. You're like a dog with a scientific head and a creationist tail. As long as your scientific head keeps seeing a creationist on its tail, I don't see a resolution. It's projection: project your fears on to something external and then attack it, and in so doing let off a bit of steam.

So no, I think it's a perfectly accurate title for this thread. And by the way, there's really nothing to fear from being too open-minded (unless you can't trust and/or control yourself -- of course that's when the moonies, creationists, communists, and all those other scary monsters can creep inside your head and change you forever! )

C.

[EDIT: Typo]

Golly, armchair psychoanalysis AND fatuous advice, for free in one post. Worth every penny, carpman, thanks.

I must point out that, for instance, the objection to DBT's in audio on the basis of no evidence whatsoever is often quite akin to the rejection of the fossil record from a YEC, or an ID proponent.

Being religious should not preclude being scientific: http://www.reasons.org

On the other hand, accepting creationism in its raw form is thoroughly misguided.



The Bible -- especially the Old Testament -- really shouldn't be taken literally. Most of them is a collection of myths and folklores gathered from the ancient Jewish people.

And that opinion is both my personal opinion and The Vatican's.



Jay Gould once pondered the concept of "punctuated equilibrium"

On of the main reasons we are here discussing in HA instead of some sapient reptillian is because the dinosaurs became extinct when a meteorite punctures the earth somewhere near current-day Mexico.

Granted, you may say that even without a deity's "meddling" that meteorite will fall anyway. Yes, but you got to remember that due to interesting astronomical factors, that is quite improbable.

The deity's got a hand in loading the dice, IMO.



Ever heard of the XX male syndrome?



Man, or the species known as Homo Sapiens, is not 'special' per se just because he/she is a Homo Sapiens.

Man is special -- from the point of view of religion -- because man is capable of grasping the concept of a deity.

Religion -- better ones, at least -- keep expanding to embrace the latest scientific advances.

I do believe that a proper religious person has no qualms to the advancement of science. One can be both religious and scientific without any internal conflict.