This Socrates quote holds (forever?):
«I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know».
The biggest mistake, in my view, a scientist in fields outside of mathematics can make is to forget what the letters «ph» in PhD stand for.
Science that is applicable is more about discussing than solid truth. A discussion is dynamic and «truth» has often been a moving target.
Charlatans in scientist’s cloths are everywhere, which this warning from the American Statistical Association from 2016 demonstrates:
http://www.amstat.org/asa/files/pdfs/P-ValueStatement.pdf
And we have the same problem in audio. While everyone agrees that signal should be as high as possible and noise as low as possible - to maximize the SNR - in practice people can’t agree on how to measure S and N. So you have different standards. And Babel confusion* as a result. One interesting question is, do smart people take advantage of this confusion to sell sChitt by making measurements that are more noise than signal?
*PS: I like the story of Babel so I thought it worthwhile to copy it here:
«
Universal Language, Babel, Confusion
11 Now the whole earth [
a]used the same language and [
b]the same words. 2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and [
c]settled there.3 They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn
them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar. 4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top
will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.” 5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.6 The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have [
d]the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be [
e]impossible for them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their [
f]language, so that they will not understand one another’s [
g]speech.” 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called [
h]Babel, because there the Lordconfused the [
i]language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth».