Assuming headphones that will close over the ears, the wave-field inside the cans (which depends on the shape of the cans and the placement of the drivers, etc) will affect reflections from pinnae (and really from the head and the cans themselves) and possibly the resonances inside both the cans and the ear (due to impedance mismatches) and such in addition to the overall EQ balance of the drivers, so the perception of different "soundstage" and also how well a given set of headphones can avoid the "inside the head" effect has some perfectly legitimate scientific basis, even though actual preferences with regards to which cans actually sound the "best" is obviously subjective and likely also dependent on individual anatomy (more so than with speakers).
There is actual science behind a lot of stuff. That's not the problem. The problem is when people take some completely non-sense comparison (like "hardware" vs. "software") and then claim that one is "better" because it has more <insert-random-vague-term>.