When does art become science?
- Thread starter Gregadd
- Start date
So you avoid taking prescription drugs because you think the system is rigged?
If so, then we hail from different shores.
You should, because this happens on a regular basis, although not nearly as often as the tort lawyers' TV ads would suggest.
You shouldn't, because not only is the oversight in other countries similar to ours, in many if not most cases our current U.S generic supply comes from those same overseas factories.
Should what? Be worried every time I take prescription medicine? Are you a doctor Rob?
It doesn't matter if it comes from the same factory. It matters whether it is imported to US under US regulation or sold on the Internet bypassing the same. An Apple phone is built in China. But if you went and sourced a phone from the same factory without Apple oversight, you would get a very inferior product.
And here is a personal history. In 1980s I worked repairing electronics for a HiFi shop in south florida. One of our best customers was a guy who had a pharmacy in Bahamas. His principal way of making money was to buy expired drugs in US and sell them in his pharmacy there!
So no, I am worried about what gets sold without western country oversights. But with those measures in place, I take my medication to cure my ailment than to sit and suffer due to concerns I am not qualified to evaluate.
Yes, it's been in my personal profile since I joined WBF.
It's hard for many "lay" people to understand just how money-driven the pharmaceutical industry and the FDA "oversight" are. Suffice it to say that few pharmaceuticals are tested on more than a few thousand people (if that) prior to general marketing, and the current standard for approval is only to be "as good as" currently approved drugs, based on that very limited testing. Several drugs each year lose their FDA approval due to side-effects that only become objectionably noticeable during post-marketing surveillance. Even more than that, as much as 60-70% of prescription drug consumption in the USA has no demonstrable benefit, except to pharmaceutical companies bottom line. Never underestimate the power of dedicated marketing, and I have no idea why this country continues to permit TV and other direct to consumer advertising for prescription medications (well, some idea, and it's not good).
There is that word rigged again.
First let me commend the pharmaceutical industry for the work they do in saving lives, .curing diseases and improving the quality of life ever day. As the hsot of the showi:Mad Money said when advising his viewers to invest. Drug companies are not in the business of killing people. Yet they do all the time. Often it is shown they knew the the drugs were dangerous but brought them to market anyway to recoup the time and money they had invested . Moreover fastracking drug development often allows
drugs to brought to market before the ill effects cab develop.. So yes I take drugs when there is no other option.
...lune mon ami Pierrot. ...Prete-moi ta plume pour ecrire un mot. ...Ma chandelle est morte je n'ai plus de feu. ...Ouvre-moi la porte ... :b
Yes. Congratulations, mon ami Pierrot, oops, mon ami Jack!
The gap between recording and playback is a record too, a staggering +157 years! This will probably only be broken when aliens figure out how to play what was put in Voyager. LOL.
Speaking of history of recording, there is a fascinating paper in the archives of AES on first commercial digital recordings by the pioneer in that space, Thomas Fine, "The Dawn of Commercial Recording." it is a very fascinating read into the players and equipment used in 1970s to achieve this. Here are some highlights (it is an image so pain in the neck to post text) related to conversations we have been having as to whether engineers were confused about fidelity of digital audio and the people around them.
As a way of summary, Denon led the charge in Japan using broadcast VTR (video tape) recorders for storage. Meanwhile a competing system from Soundstream was leading the way in US. At that time, digital was experimental and would not be allowed to be the main recording medium. It was used in parallel to recording on analog tape. The paper outlines how the adoption occurred during this process.
The demonstration at AES in 1977 was a watershed event. It showed the capabilities of digital audio and sparked a number of activities from others to experiment with the format.
Note the presence of audio magazine writers and their impression of the back up digital recording compared to tape.
3M also got into the game and this is the bit about their system in use:
And Telarc's pioneering role in digital audio:
It is fascinating that today we don't hear such feedback on superiority of digital recording to master tape even though it was there with such early digital electronics.
As a way of summary, Denon led the charge in Japan using broadcast VTR (video tape) recorders for storage. Meanwhile a competing system from Soundstream was leading the way in US. At that time, digital was experimental and would not be allowed to be the main recording medium. It was used in parallel to recording on analog tape. The paper outlines how the adoption occurred during this process.
The demonstration at AES in 1977 was a watershed event. It showed the capabilities of digital audio and sparked a number of activities from others to experiment with the format.
Note the presence of audio magazine writers and their impression of the back up digital recording compared to tape.
3M also got into the game and this is the bit about their system in use:
And Telarc's pioneering role in digital audio:
It is fascinating that today we don't hear such feedback on superiority of digital recording to master tape even though it was there with such early digital electronics.
For anyone who still persists in misunderstanding the relationship between technology, invention and science, here is a superficial but basically accurate description in a non-technical mainstream newspaper.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-basic-science-1445613954
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-basic-science-1445613954
Thanks. I read through it but was a turn off the moment it got into the political aspects of government funding research. It is overall an opinion piece and not any kind of compass to guide us in this conversation.
But let's use an example from it. I could take the Edison bulb, turn it on and 100 out of 100 people would agree it created light. Likewise, I can measure that it is creating light, and the power it is using to do that. Further, I can measure the spectrum of light it produces and demonstrate such light is indeed visible. Hypothesis that light could be produced through such electromechanic method therefore is proven.
Now imagine, I wake up one morning and think that the level of short-wave radio emissions is not the same then, than it was last night. And that must be why I think my audio system does not sound as good then, than it did last night. I proceed to create a shortwave radio transmitter with a dial that changes the frequency, put that in a box and proceed to experiment. I turn it on and oh my, it makes a radical improvement in sound. Details come out of the music, soundstage expands, and bass tightens. I turn the box off and all of those benefits disappear.
Being a science guy that I am, I try to see if the results apply to others. Bring an audiophile friend over, repeat the experiment and his reaction is positive just the same. He asks me to build him one and I think maybe I should build a bunch and sell. I do that and reports of positive results fill the Internet.
Would you say new science was discovered in our perception of sound fidelity being depending on levels of shortwave radio emissions in our listening room? Could I publish such an experiment in a peer reviewed medical journal? What are the odds that the outcome of the story that I just told is reliable?
No problem Rob. In that example, "I" is the proverbial one as one tells the story, not me. Indeed such a company exists with that product. So would you kindly answer the questions I asked?
Yes, those immediate first reports on digital were fascinating. As far I remember reading, the UK Gramophone magazine reported similar feelings when the BBC demonstrated their earlier digital systems - even the 13 bit digital link used for their FM radio system, and Nouvelle Revue du Son also had enthusiastic opinions on the Denon digital recorder.
The key point of these early findings was the absence of noise and wow and flutter. People were mostly astonished with the firm sound of piano and the immediacy of detail in the absence of tape noise.
Most of us (me included) also went through this phase when listening first time to CD. We found it marvelous, many immediately embarked in the digital adventure. We would not buy a CD if it was not DDD
. However for many people the test of time showed otherwise. Digital had some flaws that were reversing our preferences. Some of those who quickly sold their LP libraries started regretting their decision and started buying the CD player of the month, looking for the great promised sound. Tom Jung, that is referred in the texts you present, is a digital supporter and follower since day one. He gave Stereophile an interview in 2004 explaining why he switched in digital: (my bold)
To me, the side effects of digital weren't as harmful. I could never get my head past all the noise and distortion coming off the surface of the disc. God, it was always so hard to make something quiet. Some people's brains allow them to create a filter and hear through this and just listen to the music.
Nothing's perfect, but good or bad, I made a conscious decision to go digital and leave analog behind. I jumped in with both feet and didn't look back. I had the idea that, as long as the end product was going to be digital, I might as well get into that world as soon as possible. So I was one of the first guys to take the output of every individual microphone and convert it to digital, then do all the mixing and mastering in the digital domain.
Read more at http://www.stereophile.com/interviews/604jung/index.html#pMeff5TeUZBHkcmI.99
Curiously, at that time Jung was a firm DSD supporter:
Jung: They had a jazz quartet set up in the studio, and David Smith, who is Sony's technical guru, had built a passive four-way switch that would allow us to listen to and switch between the live output of the mixing desk, conventional 16-bit digital, the latest and greatest 20-bit [PCM] converter, and finally to DSD. The DSD was so much closer to the live signal than either PCM converter that it was obvious this was a direction I really wanted to pursue
IMHO, although still in evolution, digital audio is now mature enough to give us great sound quality. However I still feel, that in spite of of the technical achievements, as the proof of the pudding is in the eating , in my system, top analog technology still owns the best recordings. Surely YMMV.
Indeed I have a recent example of this. I was at RMAF and they were playing an LP. Next thing I know there is this massive static that caused me to literally jump out of my seat, thinking the amp had blown up or static electricity had hit. I look around and see that no one even noticed it around me, realizing then that it had come from the LP. Felt embarrassed but at the same time, realized how nice it is to not hear such things.
Rob,
IMHO this interesting but controversial paper does not show clearly the difference between science, technology, invention and innovation - it just debates on its possible consequences. And I always look papers with suspicion when the author uses the classical example of the steam engine and thermodynamics to extrapolate for the future in general terms. BTW, unfortunately the OECD paper is not freely accessible.
Science will never become art , art will never become science and the two lived happily apart together
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