Excellent writeup. As a working audio engineer, these video titles alone were lighting up my BS detector. Even most audio engineers don't really understand the decibel scale and SPL metrics because the field is so under-credentialized, so these topics are natural targets for this kind of fear mongering.
I can report from my work that there is a class of subwoofer in common use in high-end movie theaters and EDM concerts called infra-subs. This includes products like the D&B J-Infra and the Meyer VLFC (this one was actually originally developed for vibration testing in NASA labs). We use them when some special effect calls for some serious felt impact, like an explosion or a bass drop. Funnily enough, their use usually makes people smile, not vomit, convulse, or see ghosts!
I think you should make a YouTube video about this, or work with someone who will. Takedown videos do pretty well because like drama, and it would get many orders of magnitude more views that this post
If there was ever a treasure trove of logical fallacies and pseudoscience, at least outside parapsychology and flat earth circles, Benn Jordan's videos on this topic are it.
As usual, an excellent critique. I especially liked that you looked at the papers Jordan flashes on the screen. I saw exactly what you did. They do not provide anything close to adequate support for his claims; some present potent counter evidence to his claims. Did he not read them or not understand them? Perhaps he should’ve used GenAI to help him navigate this territory. It’s not clear whether he’s being intentionally deceptive or just sloppy. But in either case, it’s a good example of what Harry Frankfurt called “bullshit,” speaking without a proper regard for truth. What’s demonstrably harmful is Jordan's systematic disregard for well-proven criteria of cogent reasoning. It’s becoming increasingly common to replace these with question-beginning narratives.
Let me illustrate.
His main claims are causal, but he presents no serious causal argument in anything I’ve seen. In fact, he gives us every reason to think that he doesn’t know what a cogent causal argument is even supposed to look like. He bludgeons us with textbook causal fallacies (e.g., confusing correlation and causation, post hoc, and false cause).
Also, apart from the nocebo effect, he doesn’t understand that, while it may be prima facie reasonable to accept people’s first-person reports (e.g., how they feel or what they've seen), it’s fairly rare that people can dial-in an accurate story about the cause(s) of their experiences. In general, people are not very good at causal reasoning, and the more nuanced the causal chain, the less reliable they are. This is why courts limit the content of eye-witness testimony, in contrast to expert testimony which is given more latitude and includes testimony involving inferences from observation.
One more. His videos are also full ad hominem rhetorical tricks. For example: "And it turns out that a lot of this research is either partially or completely funded by the fossil fuel industry to try and find something nefarious or wrong with wind energy.” As you rightly say, "What Jordan is not-so-subtly implying is that the infrasound research is invalid because fossil fuel money touched it." In addition to your sound counter to Jordan at this juncture, his comment is a circumstantial ad hominem. Now, if it were frosting on the cake of a robust critical engagement with the studies in question, I’d be happy to look the other way. But the problem is that these kinds of rhetorical maneuvers are consistently cheap "click-bait" styled substitutes for serious argumentation.
Generally, the reasoning in these videos is so bad that I could barely get through them, Andy. I may use them in my Critical Thinking classes. I'll have to assess whether it's morally justified to subject my students to a high level of predictable suffering. (They're already upset about having to write on Garry Nolan's ET arguments.) Regardless, I’m always looking for popular examples of poor reasoning. Social media is well that’s unlikely to ever go dry in its supply. So that's a silver lining I suppose.
Thank you for this! I watched the original videos and totally fell for them. The claims sounded completely plausible. It's illuminating to hear that it was all wrong anyway.
> implicitly analogized infrasound to UV light instead of the obviously more comparable infrared light
I guess I'm wondering why you think it's obviously more comparable. My not-very-informed guess would be that the most natural dimension to line them up on would be "how much do they pass through things", which I think does make UV the more comparable.
(This is not a defence of the video, which I haven't watched.)
Thanks! I was caught up in an assumption that infrared was bad at passing through things (maybe because it makes your skin feel warm?), failed to notice that and look it up before your reply here.
Excellent writeup. As a working audio engineer, these video titles alone were lighting up my BS detector. Even most audio engineers don't really understand the decibel scale and SPL metrics because the field is so under-credentialized, so these topics are natural targets for this kind of fear mongering.
I can report from my work that there is a class of subwoofer in common use in high-end movie theaters and EDM concerts called infra-subs. This includes products like the D&B J-Infra and the Meyer VLFC (this one was actually originally developed for vibration testing in NASA labs). We use them when some special effect calls for some serious felt impact, like an explosion or a bass drop. Funnily enough, their use usually makes people smile, not vomit, convulse, or see ghosts!
I preferred it when Benn Jordan was making videos about music production. Admittedly I am now worried about the validity of those videos too 😬
I think you should make a YouTube video about this, or work with someone who will. Takedown videos do pretty well because like drama, and it would get many orders of magnitude more views that this post
Yeah I think I will
if you want this to reach the audience that took benn's video at face value should probably convert this to a video essay
If there was ever a treasure trove of logical fallacies and pseudoscience, at least outside parapsychology and flat earth circles, Benn Jordan's videos on this topic are it.
As usual, an excellent critique. I especially liked that you looked at the papers Jordan flashes on the screen. I saw exactly what you did. They do not provide anything close to adequate support for his claims; some present potent counter evidence to his claims. Did he not read them or not understand them? Perhaps he should’ve used GenAI to help him navigate this territory. It’s not clear whether he’s being intentionally deceptive or just sloppy. But in either case, it’s a good example of what Harry Frankfurt called “bullshit,” speaking without a proper regard for truth. What’s demonstrably harmful is Jordan's systematic disregard for well-proven criteria of cogent reasoning. It’s becoming increasingly common to replace these with question-beginning narratives.
Let me illustrate.
His main claims are causal, but he presents no serious causal argument in anything I’ve seen. In fact, he gives us every reason to think that he doesn’t know what a cogent causal argument is even supposed to look like. He bludgeons us with textbook causal fallacies (e.g., confusing correlation and causation, post hoc, and false cause).
Also, apart from the nocebo effect, he doesn’t understand that, while it may be prima facie reasonable to accept people’s first-person reports (e.g., how they feel or what they've seen), it’s fairly rare that people can dial-in an accurate story about the cause(s) of their experiences. In general, people are not very good at causal reasoning, and the more nuanced the causal chain, the less reliable they are. This is why courts limit the content of eye-witness testimony, in contrast to expert testimony which is given more latitude and includes testimony involving inferences from observation.
One more. His videos are also full ad hominem rhetorical tricks. For example: "And it turns out that a lot of this research is either partially or completely funded by the fossil fuel industry to try and find something nefarious or wrong with wind energy.” As you rightly say, "What Jordan is not-so-subtly implying is that the infrasound research is invalid because fossil fuel money touched it." In addition to your sound counter to Jordan at this juncture, his comment is a circumstantial ad hominem. Now, if it were frosting on the cake of a robust critical engagement with the studies in question, I’d be happy to look the other way. But the problem is that these kinds of rhetorical maneuvers are consistently cheap "click-bait" styled substitutes for serious argumentation.
Generally, the reasoning in these videos is so bad that I could barely get through them, Andy. I may use them in my Critical Thinking classes. I'll have to assess whether it's morally justified to subject my students to a high level of predictable suffering. (They're already upset about having to write on Garry Nolan's ET arguments.) Regardless, I’m always looking for popular examples of poor reasoning. Social media is well that’s unlikely to ever go dry in its supply. So that's a silver lining I suppose.
Thank you for this! I watched the original videos and totally fell for them. The claims sounded completely plausible. It's illuminating to hear that it was all wrong anyway.
Brilliant - your dog does look a tiny bit evil tho! Thanks for doing this comprehensive debunk
You say:
> implicitly analogized infrasound to UV light instead of the obviously more comparable infrared light
I guess I'm wondering why you think it's obviously more comparable. My not-very-informed guess would be that the most natural dimension to line them up on would be "how much do they pass through things", which I think does make UV the more comparable.
(This is not a defence of the video, which I haven't watched.)
Oh I mean even there infrared and infrasound pass through things much more easily than ultrasound or UV
Thanks! I was caught up in an assumption that infrared was bad at passing through things (maybe because it makes your skin feel warm?), failed to notice that and look it up before your reply here.
They must not hold water