Talk but not walk?

jf47t,

Welcome. Your first post happens to be in a thread that has really been a bit weird. Most of them are not this way.

I cannot comment about MGA speakers, but believe that they may have values that some would appreciate. If I ever hear them, I will know.

It is hard to know how many people here have been aware of Michael Green's prior work and credentials, but it really should not matter as he, in his original post, said he was not asking any for credentials. So, credentials meant nothing. Only straight answers did. Unfortunately, more than one poster was dissatisfied with what they considered as Michael's lack of straightforwardness in this thread. I personally cannot say he did not try to answer/explain my questions, but some other posters were less lucky. In fact, despite my disagreement with his statements (maybe not the best word, but close to what I mean), we had reasonably cordial and productive interaction after a while.

I think that uberwaltz, in his post on 05-17-2018 10:14pm, nicely summarized the whole thread issues.

Hello jf47t,

It’s nice to hear you are really happy with MG speakers. I’d love to hear a pair as they sound really interesting.

My take on this thread is that there was a real engineer on this forum and some of you did everything in your power to chase him away.

No, simply to get some straight answers to questions that shouldn’t have been that hard.

Michael was encouraging members here to do their homework before speaking about topics that effect other listeners decisions.

1. Some of us have done our own homework, and bring some of that experience to Michael’s claims.

2. Is it not part of doing homework, and simply thinking critically, to ask Michael about the basis for some of his claims? That’s what some of us, like myself, were doing. When the claim arose that untying capacitors "freed" the sound, I was simply asking for the explanations for this, and how it was tested. Isn’t that reasonable? If I tell you that planting pennies in your garden will make your flowers grow faster, do you run out and to this first thing - especially when the concept doesn’t even make sense to you?

Or would you first want to ask "what’s the basis for that claim? How do pennies cause flowers to grow faster and how did you test that idea?"

Before we spend time on an activity, doesn’t it make sense to first determine whether it seems worth one’s time?

Some of you appeared to get upset because Michael is a straight shooter and doesn’t waste time or allow his time to be wasted.

I presume you didn’t read a lot of the thread then?

The main problem is that Michael did NOT appear to be a straight shooter in this thread. He was very evasive - and for seemingly no good reason. That’s what numerous people have commented on.

I don’t know Michael’s engineering credentials, but I personally haven’t seen an engineer refuse to answer some of the basic and obvious engineering questions I was asking (e.g. what measured parameters change between a tied cap and an untied cap?)

I always thought that was a virtue, but not here.

Agree 100 percent. That’s why it was so odd to see MG brush off so many questions and calls for clarification.

I do hope that his future threads are more engaging even with those people who may have some questions about his claims and methods.
Of course, if he wants to stay strictly preaching to the choir, he has his own forum.

Cheers.

glupson
Does anyone know what "pseudo skeptic" means?

>>>>>Yes, someone does. 🙄

“Pseudo-skepticism (or pseudoscepticism) is a philosophical or scientific position which appears to be that of skepticism or scientific skepticism but which in reality fails to be so.

In 1987, Marcello Truzzi revived the term specifically for arguments which use scientific-sounding language to disparage or refute given beliefs, theories, or claims, but which in fact fail to follow the precepts of conventional scientific skepticism. He argued that scientific skepticism is agnostic to new ideas, making no claims about them but waiting for them to satisfy a burden of proof before granting them validity. Pseudoskepticism, by contrast, involves "negative hypotheses"—theoretical assertions that some belief, theory, or claim is factually wrong—without satisfying the burden of proof that such negative theoretical assertions would require.[5][6][7][8]

In 1987, while working as a professor of sociology at Eastern Michigan University, Truzzi gave the following description of pseudoskeptics in the journal Zetetic Scholar (which he founded):
In science, the burden of proof falls upon the claimant; and the more extraordinary a claim, the heavier is the burden of proof demanded. The true skeptic takes an agnostic position, one that says the claim is not proved rather than disproved. He asserts that the claimant has not borne the burden of proof and that science must continue to build its cognitive map of reality without incorporating the extraordinary claim as a new "fact." Since the true skeptic does not assert a claim, he has no burden to prove anything. He just goes on using the established theories of "conventional science" as usual. But if a critic asserts that there is evidence for disproof, that he has a negative hypothesis—saying, for instance, that a seeming psi result was actually due to an artifact—he is making a claim and therefore also has to bear a burden of proof...

Both critics and proponents need to learn to think of adjudication in science as more like that found in the law courts, imperfect and with varying degrees of proof and evidence. Absolute truth, like absolute justice, is seldom obtainable. We can only do our best to approximate them.
— Marcello Truzzi, "On Pseudo-Skepticism", Zetetic Scholar, 12/13, pp3-4, 1987[5]”

- cheers, your humble scribe