Harley quote

When I grew up, there were four tastes -- sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. Now there is a fifth, umami. Umami was identified, chemically, in 1908 but not understood by biology until the first taste receptors specific to umami were discovered in 2000. Were people tasting umami before their chemical or biological explanations were specified? Surely. Were there folk terms for something science had yet to measure or explain? Sure. "Savory" was one word. It seems reasonable to think that this happens in audio.

At the same time, people who go looking for a sensation -- for whatever reason -- might be able to convince themselves it's there. So, in the end, science settles nothing. We have to listen carefully for ourselves and find ways to test ourselves. And we have to decide whether or not to trust other's testimony that they hear a difference.

@audio2design

What’s funny is these people will be the first to put down or attempt to discredit scientists and engineers who have done the work, --unless-- what those scientists and engineers say agrees with what they already believe.

It’s a valid point. I know you weren’t addressing my post, but I think my point as complementary. Sometimes science knows what to measure for and sometimes the discovery comes outside of science (such as the chemist who was also a cook and wanted to know where the umami flavor came from) and then science gains new parameters to what to look for. When science is successful, we gain a new level of descriptive power and the ability to manipulate the factors involved.

People who get up in arms against science are sometimes at odds with scientism and not science. Scientism is the belief that science tells us all we need to know about the world and that its way of describing and analyzing it is all one needs. That’s clearly not true, but it doesn’t invalidate the many ways science as a tool is powerful and complementary to the things we are interested in.