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Re: John Atkinson's Rebuttal of Ben Goldacre's "Bad Science"

> is there a audible difference? But I would maintain that such is of
> little interest to audiophiles, we're interested in what you call
> "real subjective differences", i.e. we want a description of the
> attributes of the sound.

If there is no audible difference between two audio components would you consider a discussion of their "real subjective differences" to be of interest? And would you expect to hear those subjective differences yourself in the same way as reported? If so, to what do you attribute these differences: a property of the audio components or something related to your own perception?

> ... the topic of why we're generally less than proficient at ignoring
> them is an interesting one, likewise the field of science that could
> help explain such, but perhaps another day.

There is lot more than science interested in the growing phenomena of "truthiness" as exhibited by audiophiles, alternative therapy adherents, neocons, and the like.

> "But Mr. Goldacre appears to be making the naïve assumption that the
> mere fact that a test is blind inherently—his word was
> intrinsically—confers legitimacy on the test and its results. That
> assumption, I suggest, is 'bad science'—even voodoo."

John is misrepresenting what was said:

"But the most striking parallel is the widespread notion in the hi-fi community that blinded trials - where you ask listeners to identify a cable without knowing if it's cheap or expensive - are somehow intrinsically flawed."

This states audiophiles consider blind tests to be intrinsically flawed and not that Ben considers all blind tests to be legitimate.




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