1. Assume a condescending air that suggests your personal opinions are backed by the full faith and credit of God. Employ terms such as "ridiculous" or "trivial" in a manner that suggests they have the full force of the science community.
2. Reinforce the popular misconception that certain subjects are inherently unscientific.
3. Arrange to have your message echoed by persons of authority.
4. Avoid examining the actual evidence. This allows you to exclaim, "I have seen absolutely no evidence to support such ridiculous claims!"
5. Insist that the subject device is easily explained by conventional science so thereâs no mystery there.
6. Since John Q Public doesnât appreciate the distinction between evidence and proof, do your best to obscure the difference.
7. Use the tried-and-true skeptics expression, âExtraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,â as much as possible.
@teo_audio Do we have any examples of reformed "dogmatic mindset negative proofing types" and their redemption stories? Likely not to help, given the 'type,' but may make for interesting reading....
The thing about it, is..that..if one actually follows the cutting edge of psychoacoustic research and cutting edge work in acoustics, re scientific articles at places like physorg..
...what one discovers, through doing the hard work of article and research reading and reference sifting...
That the bowls (originally by Franck Tchang) actually DO WORK. AS ADVERTISED. But, it took years and years to emerge as part of the new knowledge base.It is still filtering and dripping in. 10 years from now, this will all filter down into the average bit of knowledge, for norms in psychoacoustics ,and the fields involved in acoustics. It will be in all the textbooks, to some given degree.
And the people who can't innovate and can only attack things as they are not in the textbooks (dogmatic mindset), those negative proofing mindsets...theyâll be busy attacking the next thing which they donât understand, things that are emergent and not yet in the textbooks.
And be tossing around the those intellectual flyweight nickel level charlatan and snake oil screams like they were intellectual level manhole covers.
Since, in high end audio, the expectation is the the manufacturers do have the intellectual capacity to bring the new and cutting edge -into the world of audio... it is a given that the dogmatic mindset negative proofing types, they will attack relentlessly. Ad infinitum, as the history of it shows so abundantly.
@duckworp- " What always amazes me is the question as to what motivates these people? Why do so many people want to spend their short life telling people that they are buying snake oil and telling them to do double blind tests and repeating this ad infinitum. It is pointless. Why do they do it?"                                                                                                                                      Itâs their desperate attempt at being relevant, perhaps?                                               Â
(https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/relevance)
                                Â
Oh wow! I was not aware this was going on from ten years ago. This is copy/paste:
Quote: I assume after Ethan was unsuccessful in his attempt to intimidate me he called Stereophile and likewise threatened a lawsuit.
No, he didn't threaten a lawsuit. He did try to go over my head to get his forum posting privileges reinstated, and when that didn't work, canceled all of Real Traps advertising in Stereophile. He then filed a complaint about being harassed on this and other forums by posters like "Michigan J. Frog," with the New Milford, CT police department.
Iâm not so sure. Take this little tidbit I picked up in cyberspace,Â
So What Happened To The Acoustics Forum? | Stereophile.comI noticed the Acoustics forum "went away" 3 days ago and hasn't returned yet? ... I posted an open letter to Ethan Winer (DavidL) where I called him out for attacking my Acoustic ART System ...
Are you sure youâre not Ethan Winer? I bet you are. It would be just like him to come in as someone else and say what a great guy Ethan Winer is. Give me a break.
Oh... Ethan does this all the time. Especially on Facebook. He has several fake (very fake) accounts that he posts under. It is easy to tell, as often he forgets under which account he is posting, and posts something that the "real" Ethan has already posted before (he is getting old)
Ethan is in the business of selling a product --- acoustic panels. So of course he will say this and that is snake oil, simply buy my acoustic panels. It's his marketing strategy. As simple as that. Everyone in the business has an agenda. Yes, he says he sold the business, but his name, face, etc. is still in the website, and am pretty sure he is still getting paid from that business in one shape or form or another.
Ethan would be like kryptonite to you geoff, he knows almost everything about a subject to which you know almost nothing :-) .... serious side: he can be dogmatic and jumps to conclusions without considering all variables, and will fight you, but he does listen. Speaking purely of acoustics at this point.
Ethan is true pseudo expert. A pencil twiddler of the worst and blind kind. Reminds me of someone here....
His product is crap, his knowledge base is crap. He has threatened to sue people before (individuals, forums, magazines, editorial staff, and experts among them) and been kicked off forums for such behavior. Heâs been kicked off more than one forum, for sure.
I and others have gone âround and âround with him before, and we have encountered his limited depth to such a large degree that his pattern is well known and well understood. To a point well past nausea. Reminds me of something.....it does....
Are these the marks and talents of a person whom you respect?
Ethan is good with spinning numbers on a calculator or whatnot, but even a dog or horse can be trained to do that.
But knowledgeable about acoustics? yes, maybe... at the generic base level. The rubber stamp simplistic textbook âby the numbersâ level. Sure. Sort of.
Can he fix REAL problems outside of a simplistic textbook formula?
No.
This means there is little to no mind of capacity or intellect - behind the facade.
Normally, as in the vast number of situations... I would leave this sort of thing alone. But Ethan has surely managed to drum up his own enemies by attacking that which he does not understand, with relentless fervor. And damaging the other given business and people, in the process. Kicking him to the curb is a moment of sanity and reason.
There are a great many audiophile devices that will surely test the suspicious and intractable mind of the skeptic we havenât touched on too much here. Dare I even broach the subject? You know what Iâm talking about. Things that go bump in the night. Things that absolutely drive skeptics right up the wall.
Mpingo discs and fancy fuses canât hold a candle to the Icons of Tweakery. Let me give you a few examples. Silver Rainbow Foil. đ Red x Pen. đŹ The Intelligent Chip. đŠ Quantum Temple Bell 𤪠Morphic Message Labels. đ˛ The Clever Little Clock. New Dark Matter. The Mystery Tweak which, by the way, Iâve decided not to offer for sale because then it wouldnât be a secret anymore, would it? Lock four physics PhDs đ¤ đ¤ đ¤ đ¤ in a room for a week and they would not be able to figure them out.
⢠Keep an arsenal of scientistic buzzwords at the tip of your tongue. So armed, you can effortlessly explain away even the most firmly acknowledged mysteries with a few impressive phrases and a wave of your hand. For example, the undeniable but incomprehensible facts of animal migration may be definitively ascribed to a "biological spatio-temporal vector-navigation program." Likewise, you may call upon such quasi-substantial conceptual conveniences as "biological clock," "self-organization" and "cellular memory" to deflate any suggestion that orthodox science may lack satisfactory explanations for intractably puzzling phenomena.
⢠Establish a crusading "Scientific Truth Foundation" staffed and funded by a hive of fawning acolytes. Then purport to offer a million-dollar reward to anyone who can repeatably demonstrate a paranormal phenomenon.  Set the bar for paranormality nowhere in particular. Set the bar for repeatability at a "generous" 98%, safely ensuring that even normal scientific studies that demand a mere preponderance of evidence, or average results above chance, would fail to qualify for the prize. Should someone actually meet or exceed your criteria you can effortlessly dismiss their claim by pointing out that they'd just proven the phenomenon to be perfectly normal!
You pretty much cannot go on an audio forum these days without a vocal group yelling "snake oil" "ABX before you can share your opinions" about EVERY single thing in audio.
Itâs gotten to the point I think these people get offended if people EVER listen to their system for pleasure anymore.
Just gotta ignore them as those cries add nothing to any audio discussion. To them every piece of equipment and every cable sounds the same, nothing makes a difference besides speakers and we are all wasting our time.
That mentality never leads to anything worthwhile as far as audio discussion
So true. What always amazes me is the question as to what motivates these people? Why do so many people want to spend their short life telling people that they are buying snake oil and telling them to do double blind tests and repeating this ad infinitum. It is pointless. Why do they do it? @atdavid is at least trying to do it in an original way here, but it still amounts to the same absolute waste of time. Just...why?
Copy / paste from that article (Dr. Ethan Winer, PhD): ------
Most $40 CD players sound exactly the same as $4,000 CD players. If they don't sound the same, one or both of them are defective or poorly designed. ----- That's the reason he proudly displays a Walmart DVD player as his "CD player" on his site.
Of course, same holds true for DAC, cables (any cables), Amps, etc.Â
And he uses Walmart kiddie stools to hold his bookshelf speakers. When I pointed this out on a FB group, especially with regards how short those stools are, he told me "prove it to me that those stools have any negative impact to his system", then he called me an idiot, threw a graph in my face, etc. etc.
Yeah, it keeps me up nights worrying about it. đł I donât even know what youâre talking about. Pain in my pocket book? Are you high or something? Thatâs exactly the kind of dumbass remark Ethan Winer would make. Are you sure youâre not Ethan Winer? I bet you are. It would be just like him to come in as someone else and say what a great guy Ethan Winer is. Give me a break. And stop creeping me out.
geoff, Is that a pain in the pocket book you are feeling? You worry about people in the AES ... but I donât think they worry too much about you, other than "I hope he is all right. Are you sure he doesn't need his medication?"
Shaving the messengerâs head, writing the secret message on his bald pate, letting his hair grown back, then sending him to deliver the message was the first use of spread spectrum communications. To read the message you shave the messengers head. Problem solved! Obviously the dudeâs wife might not like it too much.
All of these pseudo intellectuals, AES lovers, controlled blind testing obsessives, anti audiophiles, how is one supposed to tell them apart?! I certainly canât. Itâs like some kind of cult. Those guys kill me. And I think itâs funny. Iâm tired of pretending itâs not. Comedy is subjective. đ¤Ą
Ethan would be like kryptonite to you geoff, he knows almost everything about a subject to which you know almost nothing :-)Â .... serious side: he can be dogmatic and jumps to conclusions without considering all variables, and will fight you, but he does listen. Speaking purely of acoustics at this point.
History favors the bald. The ones whoâve pulled out all their hair trying to get to the bottom of things. History doesnât favor the armchair pseudo skeptic. Time loves a hero. Tom Waits for no one.
To them every piece of equipment and every cable sounds the same, nothing makes a difference besides speakers and we are all wasting our time.
You are wrong @swanlee597 --- speakers are snake oil to these people too. Why pay money for a brand name speaker, when you can buy same drivers online from China on eBay and build your own cabinets? LOL!!
Oh, the acoustic panels. These morons never question those either (mostly due to their Master, The Dr. Ethan Winer). But again, only 10% of them actually have any acoustic panels, and when they do, it's just thrown out there with no rhyme or reason.
History favours the bold, not the polite, though politeness is obviously an admirable goal, but to have politeness, one has to be honest, not only with others but with oneself. That honesty, I find more lacking in forums, than politeness. If we cannot be honest and accept our own limitations, then what value politeness?
I would rather someone call me something to my face and let me defend myself, then treat me with complete politeness, while talking behind my back.
Good faith is the only guide for you first, and for others after that...Expertise or others experiments and knowledge from others will correct my way if I am of good faith...
In forum politeness is the supreme manifestation of intelligence and an impersonal intelligence is also at play here, not only a personal one...
You pretty much cannot go on an audio forum these days without a vocal group yelling "snake oil" "ABX before you can share your opinions" about EVERY single thing in audio.
It's gotten to the point I think these people get offended if people EVER listen to their system for pleasure anymore.
Just gotta ignore them as those cries add nothing to any audio discussion. To them every piece of equipment and every cable sounds the same, nothing makes a difference besides speakers and we are all wasting our time.
That mentality never leads to anything worthwhile as far as audio discussion
Have I read the article? Three guesses. The first two donât count. You might think Iâm just being funny but comedy is subjective. Why on Earth would I want to read an article about the dynamics of the internet? All of the dynamics of human interaction is right there in front of our noses, all day long, every day. Hel-loo! So cut us some slack. The new pseudo-scientist is the same as the old pseudo-scientist (with apologies to The Who) đŹ
Gee whiz, Lizzie, you act like you care. Thatâs so sweet! If you think I was kidding you need to go back to whatever backwater school you went to and demand your money back, which probably wasnât more than 100 dollars anyway. And Iâm not joking now either. đ¤Ą
Some opinions have littler value than others. Some people believe there actually is a debate. Well, there isnât. Letâs call it a pretend debate. But if it makes you feel good to think itâs a real debate by all means knock yourself out. đ¤Ş
Atdavid Obviously you have NO CLUE at all as to the reality of my postings of recent times on this thread and what they really appertain to so maybe you should quit while you are ahead. TBH I am in the wrong for even posting such off topic posts here but they were relevant for people who they concern. I will cease and desist forthwith as my point has been duly noted by those who need to know. Good day to all.
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