From: DPierce@world.std.com (Richard D Pierce)
Subject: Why Debunk?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 19:32:40 GMT

Several recent postings have succeeded in getting my blood to boil to the
point where I have posted several somewhat strong and angry counter-posts,
debunking some load of horse sh*t that somebody decided to spew.

For example, Scott Rowin posted some complete fantasy about how vents work
in vented box xpeakers. Somebody else declared that it was impossible for
car audio amplifiers to put out more than a couple of watts. And a whole
raft seems bent on spewing drivvle about how digital audio works.

What do they all have in common? They all posted articles, filled with
their view of truth, without having once attempted to verify the facts. In
many of these cases, the information they posted was not just innaccurate
or incomplete, it was just plain wrong. It flies counter to knowledge that
has been well established and proven for a long time, in some cases many
decades. It proposes theories that run completely counter to the way the
universe operates, and would dictate that it must operate in ways the are
demonstrably impossible.

Fortunately for everyone else, and unfortunately for these posters, the
assertions they make are completely testable and falsifiable. And it is so
trivial to falsify them that it is ridiculous. Why is this important?
Because if they are so obviously wrong, they have no business being posted
in the first place.

Why should Dick Pierce care? What is he, some sort of net cop or something?

No, I simply keep seeing that these types of articles all have one other
thing in common. They are read by people who don't necessarily know any
better and who asked a legitimate question and who are searching for a
legitimate answer. Along comes some fool who reads some magazine article
about a classmate whose uncle had a friend that worked with some guy that
built a pair of loudspeakers. Presto-Chango, he's an expert, and proceeds
to post something that is so obviously flawed, it would otherwise be
competely laughable. 

And the poor person who asked the question, he doesn't know what the right
answer is (that's why she asked the question to begin with!). And along
comes the first answer riddled with bunk. Then comes some other answers,
loaded with different bunk, and along come some more, that are a lot
closer to the facts. How does someone who doesn't know the difference know
the difference?

Look, friends, if you have an opinion about how something works, then say
"well, this is my opinion, so take it as such." What we don't need is the
babbling nonsense of a bunch of self-appointed experts confusing people
who genuinely want to learn.

Am I a self-appointed expert? Is JJ a self apointed expert? Gabe Weiner
and others?

No, we are not self appointed experts. We are experts appointed by others
because of our demostrated skills, knowledge, grasp of the technology and
long epxperience in our respoective fields. For myself, professional and
commercial clients are willing to pay me lots of money because I have
proven to them that I know what the hell I am talking about, and the proof
lies in their technical and commercial success. JJ sits on standards
commitees for several digital standards not because of his unflagging and
unquestioning devotion to digital audio, but because he knows how to ask
the hard questions and where the flaws are. All of us experts have
something in common in that we make life misrable for our clients, by
forcing them to take a hard look at physical reality.

So, if you're going to post technical information, then make sure you got
it right before you post, Okay? Save yourself a lot of embarrasment. If
you don't want to bother checking your facts, then post away. And suffer
accordingly.

Pulpit off.


-- 
|                Dick Pierce                |
|    Loudspeaker and Software Consulting    |
| 17 Sartelle Street   Pepperell, MA  01463 |
|       (508) 433-9183 (Voice and FAX)      |
Newsgroups: rec.audio