Rationally Speaking #90 - On Wine, Water, and Audio

Rationally Speaking Podcast

New York City Skeptics

Society & Culture, Skepticism, Science, Philosophy

4.6 • 787 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2013

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Rationally Speaking, Julia and Massimo turn their attention to connoisseurship -- or snobbery, depending on your point of view! Fine wines, bottled water, high-end audio equipment -- what all these have in common are passionate customers who are discriminating enough to pay top dollar for subtle differences between options. Or are they? This episode explores the evidence on whether connoisseurs can really tell the difference between, for example, the $7 wine and the $700 one -- or whether it's a distinction without a difference.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education.
0:22.4	For more information, please visit us at NYC Skeptics.org.
0:35.4	Welcome to Rationally Speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense.
0:40.9	I am your host, Massimo Pilucci, and with me as always is my co-host, Julia Galev.
0:44.9	Julia, what are we going to talk about today?
0:47.3	Massimo, today we are going to delve into the wonderful world of connoisseurship or snobbery, depending on your perspective.
0:54.0	Hey, you're talking about snobbery. Are you accusing me of being snobbery depending on your perspective.
0:55.6	Hey, you were you talking about snobbery?
0:57.2	Are you accusing me up being snobbing?
0:58.6	Not, well, not yet anyway. Not yet.
0:59.1	Okay, good.
0:59.8	So the particular kinds of connoisseurship slash snobbery that we're going to be talking
1:05.7	about today are fields like wine expertise in inophelia, if you will, inology,
1:14.4	people who have strong preferences about which audio system sounds best,
1:21.1	which particular compression style or cables produce the best sound.
1:25.5	Audio files.
1:26.2	There you go.
1:27.9	Audiology, perhaps.
1:29.4	And then, you know, various and sundry other kinds of connoisseurship that have sprung up,
1:34.6	like people having very strong preferences about which kind of bottled water tastes best.
1:39.2	So this is an episode that potentially could piss off a lot of people.
1:42.7	Oh, goody.
	...

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