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In Reply to: RE: Entomology may be a bugger but... posted by rick_m on July 06, 2008 at 16:27:12
"So, now that THAT's off my chest, what's the big deal with 'empirical'? Do you really believe that it has the inescapable connotation of quackery?"Simple, really. English and English literature are my life: they are where I have had too much academic training and are what my profession revolves around. To start arguing word meanings (or quoting Shakespeare) around me is about on par with arguing medicine with a Physician's Assistant (figuring relative degree levels) or circuit design with an electrical engineer. It is where my passion lies and when someone posing as being knowledgeable about the subject decides to use some evidence from my field to make a faulty argument, well, it is no matter to respond. This is especially so as back in my college days, a few of my professors required that I work on several hefty papers regarding word origins, meanings and how dictionaries handle them, so this is about like asking an electrical engineer to figure out the sum resistance of two parallel resistors. Add to that the ability to touch type (this may come as a surprise to two-finger typers, but a long post takes only a few moments to type) and voila. Funny how those same folks who have thousands of posts on audio forums fall into abusive comments regarding my life when these are just a few posts of my paltry few hundred that happened to touch on what I do for a living.
Anyways now, the connotations related to "empirical" are inescapable when degree is factored in. When the "empirical" component is a fraction of the overall body of evidence brought to bear against a problem, then the most basic meanings work so long as they are qualified in their limit of scope. However, when the "empirical" is the total evidence being brought to bear or providing a basis for a course of action, then the connotation of quackery is inescapable. For another example, an "ass" is but a part of the body, but when it comes to dominate the character and behavior of a person, then the person becomes an "Ass" and starts posting responses such as Analog Scott and E-stat have to my countering an abusive use of a faulty word definition.
"Since this is a hard-bitten, nothing-but science and technology forum it seem appropriate to use the definition I learned in college about the time that your dictionary was being written: An understanding of relationships based upon observation rather than theory. It's usually interactive, we don't just observe, we poke around and try to find a "handle", something we can turn to cause a change of any sort in that which we are observing and thus learn more about it. "
There you are making a faulty assumption about my sources because you disagree with the contents. This is dangerous ground to tread as it means that you are setting up an argument without a supporting foundation of legitimate evidence. This is a poor argument and once again goes back to the tenets of naive realism: if the person does not agree, it is because their evidence is faulty or they are biased in their interpretation. The dictionaries I have on hand vary from old to freshly released updates. In fact, several are more recent than the time you spent in college and are currently considered the leading lexicographical reference regardless of your impression. Regardless of that, there are certain components of the English language that are relatively stable, an oddity considering the astounding fluidity of language, and the words of Greek origins are one of those primary components; they are as Polaris and drift in position about as rapidly.
"Empiricism brackets the scientific process. Science usually starts by trying to explain what is observed. If that goes well and a deeper understanding is established, it ends by predicting what will be observed and then having that empirically verified. Often at tremendous expense to the taxpayers, have you priced high energy colliders lately?"
On the contrary, "empiricism" is the ground floor of science and a qualifier of evidence, but as mentioned before, it depends upon degree. Now, this is going beyond the mere definition of the word and carcass attempting to use it as a weapon for insult and instead is touching upon the nature of science and the misinterpretation of empirical evidence. Right now, I'm wishing a couple of my science friends were handy to address this, but I'll give it a shot. "Empirical evidence" is the basis of science, science cannot be science without it, but empirical evidence without theory is not science. Empirical observation and experimentation (the basic sense of the word) are the observations that provide scientists with the ideas to go about the method to formulate theories. From there, it also can serve to substantiate theory, though never provide "proof" as that word means despite how readily it is thrown around. This is science at its most reduced form. However, the connotation of degree comes back into play: it is science when the empirical component is kept only as a component. Thus the very use of the word is a misnomer here and where the confusion arises and understandings go awry.
"Empirical" on its own is purely personal observation and personal experiment, it is the naive realism approach to the world, where one's perceptions are deemed accurate tellers of the "truth" (I hate using that word as those espousing "truth" are always doing the opposite.) of the natural state of the world and its components. (I'm going to try to explain this, but it will be done badly.) It cannot be carried over to other observers due to its purely perceptional existence. It is done in an uncontrolled environment with uncontrolled or limited apparatus. When this unqualified, unquantified "evidence" is used to formulate an idea of why something is, you end up with bad science. Bad science is creating a descriptive theory of why something is believed to work using only information of an empirical nature as defined with disregard to attempting to apply that theory back to the system. This is how the connotation of quackery comes about. It is akin to the SNL skit for Theodoric of York; the "medical" barbers observed sickness empirically and believed the cause of illness to be angry dwarves in the stomach. Think of astrology: some people saw the old "wandering stars" as the Greeks called them then had something bad happen and deduced from this empirical evidence that the stars' movement caused the misfortune. It is also akin to performing a sighted cable swap in a system with no controls over the experiment, perceiving a difference and declaring the cable to be "superior" and those who cannot hear it to be inferior, deaf, dumb, cheap (evidently because they can't hear the price tags), etc. Basically, a "science" that is purely observation and (uncontrolled) experiment is not science, it is alchemy.
Real science, on the other hand, requires controlled experimentation and observation to provide an idea for a theory. Yes, there is empirical evidence, but it is highly regulated in a controlled environment to reduce the potential that the observed effects are at the cause of one source. Initially, a theory may be developed that is descriptive in that it is trying to describe why what is being seen is happening, but good science does not stop here. The theory is then evaluated to determine not what it describes, but what is subsequently predicts what will happen with a change in a controlled system. The theory is then evaluated using evidence gathered empirically (with strong theoretical backing). If the predictive nature of the theory is shown potentially correct, the evidence is considered substantive, and thus begins the long process of constantly applying the theory in its predictive capacity to other controlled systems. Any empirical evidence that is agreement with the theory will strengthen its standing in the scientific community, but one instance of its consistently breaking will result in it either being refined or tossed out.
To go back to the wandering stars example, Einstein's Theory of Relativity is a success not simply because it described Mercury's odd movement where Newton's faltered, but because it predicted the refraction of star light by the sun's gravitational field as measured during an eclipse.
Let's see if I can summarize this and try to make it clearer. Empirical approaches are quackery if used alone without external, objective controls and qualifiers. Bad science uses only empirical components to understanding, in uncontrolled situations and it ends with the idea where contrary evidence is ignored unless absolutely overwhelming (and not always then). Good science uses empirically gathered evidence, but taken from very controlled situations, and the theories can be broken the instant when contrary information arises.
Empirical approaches to audio involve changing a component and hearing an expected effect via confirmation bias -- the bias where a belief induced prejudice causes the individual to only see evidence in support of their prejudice and disregard that which does not. People here "know" what they hear and claim that science is currently wrong and will eventually come around to their beliefs. (A book by the same title calls part of the cause of this an "intellectual moron" effect where people perceive an effect and using only empirical reasoning think themselves into concluding a cause of the effect that is completely wrong. Say, sitting down after a power cord swap and hearing a difference due to dispersion differences from sitting in a slightly different place and thinking themselves into believing the cause was the power cord rather than their head being out of position by a couple of inches, which can have a significant effect.) Good science approaches to audio use empirically gathered evidence from controlled systems and seek out an understanding of why things are rather than assuming them to be exactly as perceived to be heard. People of this approach believe they might hear something, but try to figure out what is really happening and if those findings contrast with the belief, then the belief is considered faulty, not the science.
Indeed, I have priced the most recent colliders. Though my profession is English based, I maintain a membership in the AAAS as my hobby. (In academia, one must have interests outside their field lest one becomes narrow-vision and dry oveall.) As such, I receive the weekly issues of Science and have followed the development of the most recent collider. It is an empirical experiment, but the measurement equipment is huge and horrendously expensive for the very need that it be highly controlled using scientific theories and quantifiers applied to the empirical component -- it is the high-energy physics version of a double blind test in an anechoic room with a carefully chosen and controlled audio system. Mixing arsenic and lode stone to try to create the Philosopher's Stone is also empirical -- that is the chemistry/physics equivalent of sighted evaluations with booze and a mind full of marketing claims.
"So in the end as at the beginning we are left with empiricism. In audio, in medicine, in rocketry, in law, in beauty, in sports, in every human endeavor where we have yet to identify and control all of the variables. Every year, we control more and have better tools, but in the final analysis the winners are empirically decided."
No. In the beginning and the end, we are left with empiricism, but only when very tightly controlled and reigned in by predictive theory. That is an important distinction that must be made to appreciate what is really going on.
"Empiricism isn't quackery, empiricism is life!"
Viva la revolution? Empiricism alone is quackery and alone it is life as we can only perceive, not directly sense. That's why we need to bring reasoning to bear with external objective references to guide that reasoning or we're just blindly groping in the dark. Though, if the individual's ego is large enough, they might consider that better and how things "really are" rather than unnerving and humbling like it is for the rest of us who desire to understand what is actually happening.
Edits: 07/07/08Follow Ups:
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