In reply to:
At our current level of data aquisition and human physiology, we may not yet be capable of presenting the entire story.
I'll accept that. Science, is hardly infallible. I'm 60 (in a few months), and I've seen too many instances of science saying one thing, and then, years later, pulling a 180 and saying "oops, we goofed."
However, fallibility aside, Scientific evaluation provides the best chance of getting it right, and odds are it will provide the correct answer considerably more often than anecdotal perception by the human senses.
If we're going to talk about fallibility, as many times as science has gotten it wrong, the odds are our senses, coupled with our brain, are going to get it wrong much more often than scientific method.
Motion-Bounce Illusion
If that's too subtle try....
Hering Illusion
And this one blew my mind..
“Lilac Chaser”
And yes, there are auditory illusions as well as optical illusions. According to
Wikipedia --
"
An auditory illusion is an illusion of hearing (sense), the sound equivalent of an optical illusion: the listener hears either sounds which are not present in the stimulus, or "impossible" sounds. In short, audio illusions highlight areas where the human ear and brain, as organic, makeshift tools, differ from perfect audio receptors (for better or for worse)."
(The red accent is mine for emphasis, and I'm interpreting "perfect audio receptors" as meaning some tool of scientific measurement.)
For those interested here are some
Demonstrations of Auditory Illusions
None of the above accurately explains what some perceive as "speaker break-in," but they do demonstrate the fallibly of the senses combined with the human brain. What those on the "science" side of the argument have a difficult time understanding about those on the other side of the argument, is how they can put such faith is something as unreliable as the combination of brain and senses.
Edit: F107, I didn't interpret that paragraph as argumentative at all. And, I think your point is absolutely correct. We DO deceive ourselves, or rather are deceived by our own interpretations and biases. And, indeed, we are just as capable of deceiving ourselves that we DIDN'T hear something we did, as the opposite. However, that merely supports my premise that the human senses are much too fallible to relied upon when compared to a correctly structured scientific test.
Again, I wish to make it perfectly clear. When someone claims to have heard speaker break-in, NO ONE IS DENYING THAT THEY HEARD A CHANGE. I'M CERTAIN THEY DID. But the question remains, did the speaker change, or did the listener's PERCEPTION of the speaker's sound change? If it's the latter, that in no way implies that they were "fooled," are "foolish" or are considered "fools." Being deceived by one's senses is an all too human phenomenon.
