Talk but not walk?

So geoff’s hand was finally forced to show his"pseudo skeptic" card that he kept threatening me and others with - throwing around that label as if it suited, or showed any problem with, my arguments.

Of course, if anyone reads the "definition" of pseudo skeptic he can see that my arguments actually fit right in with the definition of a "True" skeptic:

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.

And that’s what I’ve done: refrained from making any absolute claims that a tweak doesn’t work, but instead have asked for the evidence.

My reply to glupson summarizing my position, on this very page, falls right in line with the above concept of "True skepticism." You can see the caution and tentative nature of what I myself would claim, and how I apply that same caution and "provisional" conclusions to other people’s claims - scaling my confidence with the nature of the claim and the quality of the evidence.

And everything I’ve written has been careful to stay within those bounds.Never have I said "X tweak CAN NOT make a difference." Instead, I have simply asked for the evidence. And where appropriate, explained why I have some grounds for skepticism.

People who think in a blinkered biased fashion often only see an argument for skepticism as "A dogmatic denial of the claim" when in fact, of course, it is not at all. It is simply giving a reason why you are asking for better evidence than has been provided (e.g. if you make a claim that either does not seem to make technical sense, or that goes against some of my and other people’s own experience, these are reasons to withhold belief and ask for better evidence than someone’s "say so."). To express skepticism isn’t to say "Your claim is false" but to point out "you have not provided sufficient evidence for me to accept that claim, for these reasons..."

But you can’t really argue this to someone absolutely set on one way of thinking, or whose claims are threatened by "True Skepticism."

And I wouldn’t expect geoff to "get it" if after all this time it hasn’t sunk in. But geoff’s never ending stream of gaffs can sometimes be handy to point out various fallacies and bad arguments, so we have him to thank for that ;-)

thecarpathian,

As you can see Geoff’s attempt to critique that portion of my post (mentioning "credentials") is the usual attempt to avoid the actual substance of the point made. He just ignores the point that an engineer wouldn’t typically evade answering pertinent engineering questions about his own claims. In fact, I can not remember - ever, in an online discussion or elsewhere - an engineer or someone with expert credentials in some audio field so deliberately evading pertinent questions. Usually they are only too happy to explain more and make their case.

Whether I’m an engineer or not - and I’m not - has nothing to do with my observation about MG avoiding questions, so of course I wasn’t making it some "let’s compare credentials" statement. MG may have the best credentials I’ve ever seen and that would be irrelevant to the fact he was evading questions. So Geoff is as usual snapping at air - there was zero of pertinence to the substance of my post.

Michael Green used very move in the book to avoid answering my posts.
When he asked me to tell him about the different sound between two capacitors - it was an obvious attempt to distract from answering my questions about the evidence for his claims concerning capacitors and tie wraps. Anyone paying attention could easily infer what his motivation was: "I’m going to bring up two very specific capacitors, and it will show that prof hasn’t experience with those capacitors, therefore it will leave the impression that prof hasn’t the experience I, Michael Green, have, which will leave the impression prof has no leg on which to stand in being a skeptic on these issues. It will show prof is ’talking but not walking."

The post utterly wreaked of that obvious motivation.

But I didn’t give him an answer that would warrant that conclusion at all.

I haven’t played with those capacitors so I wouldn’t be making a claim either way - whether or how they sound different and in what applications. So I have no burden of proof. But if Michael claims they sound different, I would like to see on what evidence he is making the claim.

As there is NOTHING Michael could actually impugn about my stance in that reply, he could not - as with every other post of mine - honestly interact with it to find fault.

So instead he simply thanked me for answering. Did he ever explain the reason for the question? (I asked...but he wouldn’t say...spelling it out would spell out too vividly the fallacy and evasive tactic he was using).

But by just thanking me for my answer, he would leave in the air the impression - for anyone impressionable enough - that he’d just made a point.

As I said; a textbook intellectually dishonest interaction.

But it does seem that a number of people noticed, and didn’t fall for it.

Like I said: MG may have some truly helpful, interesting and efficacious techniques to share. It’s just a shame to cloud it with this type of behaviour and I hope future interactions are more positive.

Whereas with Geoff...well...he’s the forum equivalent of the neighbourhood dog who barks at everyone who passes by. You get used to the noise...

But let us get down to the real important stuff shall we.

Deadpool2.
7pm
My daughter and I

Yeehah!

Prof
Seriously I believe MG failed in every aspect of managing this thread.
Maybe he did not take into account that his target audience here are not the same as those who flock to his site.
After all they chose to go there and were more captive and easily seduced.
Once he found the hard sell here was not going to fly without some evidence and supporting facts he became lost.
Just handled very badly imho

uberwaltz,
Sounds great!
But please remember: I will not take your opinion on this movie as reliable unless you your assessment was made in the context of proper methodological controls, including a control group.
Otherwise, have fun! :-)