Hifi is a classic case of the push and pull between subjectivity and objectivity. And because they are confident this is so, they then have to endure a conflict within themselves when either the facts change, or a new theory, which contradicts their existing one, also fits the facts. Unfortunately there are those who, because their theories fit the facts, assume they are right. In other words, have confidence that you are wrong even though your solution appears to be the correct one. What is really necessary is to be able to produce a theory which fits the facts and yet still be able to accept it is wrong. But this can lead to a state of mind which tends to rely primarily on the facts that they themselves have discovered, which they feel allow them to promote theories to explain phenomena as being some kind of final statement, or at least a stepping stone to The Truth. Many people (of both the scientific and non-scientific persuasion) are intent on getting the facts, by which they often mean as getting the right answer to a problem. Not confidence about facts or theories, but self-confidence and being able to be wrong. They could accept new facts, and fit them to existing theories somehow, but accepting new ideas was difficult. And throughout the ages it has suffered because scientists could not accept new ideas. Science is not objective science is subjective, first and foremost. The old ones are then ignored, forgotten if they conflict with the new, or are incorporated into the body of knowledge if they don't. There are no "laws of nature" until someone comes up with them, and they last only as long as it takes someone else to come up with new ones. They don't exist in the objective world until someone thinks them up and speaks or writes about them. The problem here is that if everyone was totally objective about everything then there would be no new ideas because ideas and theories are subjective items. If everyone approached things by scientific method we'd get somewhere." Peter Baxendall.