In article , Malcolm
wrote:
On Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:01:56 +0000, Bob Latham wrote:

[snip]

Most of these so-called objectivists are nothing more than hypocrites.
If they really believed what they spout they'd all have £50 CD players
from Tesco's, £100 NAD (or whatever ) amps and use £2 interconnects and
bell wire/mains cable for their speaker connections. After all, these
all "measure" as well as £2k CD players/amps or expensive
interconnects/speaker cables.

They also, of course, would choose their wines or whiskies via double
blind tastings!!

Quite an interesting mix of the use of three debating tactics... false
dichotomy, ad hom, and straw man. Plus, of course the vagueness of
referring to "they", etc, to avoid being specific, but to make sweeping
assertions regardless. :-)

The truth is that their "knowledge of science" as you put it, is
anything but knowledge. A good scientist knows that any scientific
"fact" is merely a working hypothesis that cannot be disproven to agree
with the state of scientific data at the time. The people we are talking
about here are not scientists but engineers with an overblown faith in
technology.

Well, I doubt a "good scientist" would think that a "fact" is the same as
an "hypothesis". I also doubt they would regard it as being part of the
scientific method to pre-assume that every hypothesis *will* be "disproven*
in advance of any evidence to that effect. So they would be unlikely to
dismiss an idea on the basis of such a belief. Your wording seems to be
based on this pre-assumption, although maybe this is simply that your
wording is so convoluted as to become ambiguous or vaguely sweeping.

An academic scientist might talk about an hypothesis being tested by
collecting relevant and assable *evidence*, and then seeing if that agrees
with or clashes with the hypothesis. The process would then be on a case by
case basis of assessment. Not a blanket presumption of the kind you assert.
Usually, conclusions follow evidence, not pre-assume it! :-)


Slainte,

Jim

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