There are a lot of things that I notice here, but I will start with one of the most basic mistakes people make when they try to be scientific: Making sweeping generalised statements.Can you give an example, of *what* research you think is being taken / stretched beyond its original context (presumably to dismiss a claim)?
The discussion about it is much more nuanced, but let's take a controversial topic and, while avoiding the topic itself (it is not relevant here) look at a common statement... "Audio cables do not make a difference." Again, whether or not you feel the statement is correct is irrelevant here. However, in science such a statement is not allowed (people still do it anyway, but that is just people being people). A famous example to explain this was used by Karl Popper when he discussed the problem of induction (inductive reasoning). Before Europeans discovered Australia people lived in a world where they saw swans, many swans and all of those swans were white, therefore "all swans are white". It is an example of inductive reasoning and it is flawed, something that people discovered once they got to Australia and saw Cygnus atratus, the black swan.
It might seem like a very simple argument, but the principle of it is incredibly relevant when we study the world around us. We must try to avoid sweeping statements (inductive reasoning) because it is a form of bias and it affects the subsequent steps we take.
You make good points and I honestly do not know how it can change. A problem here is that this section of the forums is pretty well isolated. So when you talk about conversation stoppers for actual scientists, the regulars here are causing that as well. We come in and look at the discussions going on and see people who profess to be scientific make all the rookie mistakes in the book and our response is... "Where on earth do we even start?" Because this is such a tight-knit community mistakes are constantly reaffirmed as being "science" and if anyone comes in to say anything about it, then they are ridiculed and branded the enemy. Heck, yesterday already someone was making assumptions about me in such a way. There is clearly a strong interest in science here, but you are actively hamstringing any chance of there being a meaningful scientifically informed discussion here. And that I suspect is the reason why these discussions are banned elsewhere in the forums, because nothing is as disruptive as a person who stakes a claim to a "scientific truth" they reached in an unscientific way. And people do this all the time with the best possible intentions and it is heartbreaking for those of us who have dedicated our lives to science. You miss out on all the good stuff and you just get stuck in lifeless arguments.I'm with @Wyville on this(I'm going to explain when and why don't panic^_^), but my main problem is that I do not know how we could change anything. most threads don't even reach the point where people can agree on a few axioms or known facts and use that as building blocks for a given topic. how do we discuss the significance of a sound variation when one side of the argument rejects both measurements and controlled tests? how do we diagnose the cause of an event when that event is not going to be properly documented and will usually stop at "trust me I know what happened", or "I know what I heard"? how do we even begin to define the audible impact of something to a person who doesn't believe in the very concept of hearing threshold and has no clear understanding of the magnitudes involved? or maybe even believes that the human ear is much more accurate and able to sense things than dedicated recording tools?
we are constantly confronted to people who are completely unqualified to even discuss a topic, let alone come bragging about a conclusion they reached based on a vague idea and some sighted anecdote. what are we expected to do beside obviously reject the conclusion and point out the logical fallacy, or total lack of supporting evidence, or how if the guy is right, he's not a human being? we cannot discuss science or behave following the scientific method when most posters don't know what it is, don't understand why it is a necessity to try and get closer to facts and accurate models, and don't understand that their subjective impressions of the world are not showing them accurate objective reality. one big problem here is that people come making empty claims. it's already bad enough, but when confronted, most have no intention or ability to provide data about what happened to them. they won't have documented anything and don't plan to ever do it. they only want us to take anything they claim at face value...
any of those issues would be a conversation stopper for any actual scientist trying to get somewhere on a given subject. so of course there isn't much science in this section. instead we see a lot of preaching and people who get mad because today, yet another guy saying he was a chess master, but he doesn't know the rules, doesn't have a chess board, doesn't plan to ever bring one, and ultimately never cared about chess at all. all he wanted was for people to believe that he was indeed a chess master because he said so.
but no matter what reason I find to explain what's going on, I agree about all the shortcomings of most regulars on this section(myself included, obviously), like how easily we accept empty statements so long as they agree with us or our general line of thought. or how we will not bother to properly demonstrate our views or wonder if we got there using some baseless belief we got at one point and never questioned. and all the nasty territorial wars where we do try to push anyone that isn't like us out of the section on the motive that within Head-fi, that section is the only place where accountability and controlled tests aren't banned or strongly frowned upon. that of course is a clear reason as to why both are systematically brought up. because in this sub section, we can, so we do. the end result is messy, angry, extremist because after discussing the same BS 500 times for years, we all end up taking more and more shortcuts that actual science and proper reasoning wouldn't allow. it's bad, but it's tiring not to take shortcuts. having to properly assess the level of the person we're talking to on that specific topic, so we can try to make some explanation he might understand(because that's where we are most of the time, forget an explanation that he might accept, just getting understood tends to be a long term project nowadays). some here clearly just go for the kill as a way to assess who they're talking to. that's not good, obviously. if we're not ready to have order and method on our side, we shouldn't participate in a section about the science of stuff.
but again, knowing and being able to stop ourselves, 2 vastly different matters. what I'm saying is that beside trying to change Headfi, and change people in it, I don't know how this section could possibly become more like its name.
as for science in general, we're not doing that. we're not researchers, we almost never have statistically significant samples, or experiments documented well enough that we can use them, interpret them correctly, maybe replicate them, find the potential flaws, try to fix them, etc. most people worry about being right instead of worrying about how to find out the truth. that's going to happen everywhere sadly. what we can do is take the existing data and try our best to stop people from misinterpreting it and jumping to conclusion that go way beyond the experiment itself. if we just did that well, we'd be pretty badass.... for the amateur audiophile microcosm.