Perpetual Student
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Why is there so much crackpot physics?
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Raze
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Perpetual Student
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We could study this. Construct a ten question test of crackpot indicators.Are you suggesting that crackpots tend to be fat?
Sample questions:
Do you think acupuncture can cure diseases?
Do you think the sun is a cathode?
Each subject would also be evaluated for obesity by asking for weight and height. To make it simple, the ratio of weight to height could be used as a surrogate for BMI. Then we could see what correlation we have to crackpot answers and the ratio weight/height.
This made me laugh. Ignoring the totally random answers ("Cathode? I don't know that word... um, yes?") the number of people is who actually think the Sun is a cathode is probably a few dozen. The number of people who have heard of the sun-is-a-crackpot idea can't be more than a few thousand---what, a subset of JREF and BAUT readers, a subset of professional astronomers, and no one else.
You can't survey for that. It'd be like trying to find man-on-the-street opinions on the civil service examination system in Tirasopol, Transnistria.
Perpetual Student
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It was, of course, made in jest.
But your comments inspire a new idea. Perhaps we could conduct such a study among JREF participants.
Another possible question:
Do you know the difference between dark matter and "DARK MATTER"?
dasmiller
Just the right amount of cowbell
Let me try:
"dark matter" is the unobservable (primarily non-baryonic) matter that makes up a large fraction of all the matter in the universe, as inferred from many repeatable observations.
"DARK MATTER" is part of a sentence that includes one or more of the words "FANTASY," "DELUSION," and "RIDICULOUS," ends with at least 3 exclamation points, and implies (or states outright) that the entire astrophysics community is ethically and intellectually bankrupt as evidenced by the astrophysics community's dismissal of an alternate hypothesis that is either unfalsifiable or has already been falsified.
Did I get it right?
Raze
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Perpetual Student
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Very good, but you forgot "math bunny."
DeiRenDopa
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Idiot.We could study this. Construct a ten question test of crackpot indicators.
Sample questions:
Do you think acupuncture can cure diseases?
Do you think the sun is a cathode?
Each subject would also be evaluated for obesity by asking for weight and height. To make it simple, the ratio of weight to height could be used as a surrogate for BMI. Then we could see what correlation we have to crackpot answers and the ratio weight/height.
The Sun is an anode, an "ANODE", the Hotel California for electrons!!!
Doh, you people, can't you get it straight?!? The photosphere is a plasma arc discharge, the corona a glow discharge, and the chromosphere the n in a pnp transistor. Scott, channeling Alfven, channeling Birkeland said so, so it must be true.
Never forget math bunny. You wouldn't like math bunny when he's angry.
dasmiller
Just the right amount of cowbell
Idiot.
The Sun is an anode, an "ANODE", the Hotel California for electrons!!!
Doh, you people, can't you get it straight?!? The photosphere is a plasma arc discharge, the corona a glow discharge, and the chromosphere the n in a pnp transistor. Scott, channeling Alfven, channeling Birkeland said so, so it must be true.
I'm currently (no pun intended) developing my "transistor" model of the sun, in which the sun is powered by galactic currents (driving the 'collector' part of the transistor) and the chromasphere acts as the base, with the base voltage being induced by the motion of the planets and their associated magnetic fields.
If that doesn't work out, I also have my "capacitor," "Schottky diode", and "6 MHz 8086 without the optional 8087 coprocessor" models.
dasmiller
Just the right amount of cowbell
truth be told, the math bunny and I don't get along too well even when the bunny is in a good mood.
Perpetual Student
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Well, it's your own fault! If you stopped calling him math bunny and used the correct name, "MATH BUNNY" he might become your *friend.*
Perpetual Student
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As a layman trying to get a handle on how the universe works, there are times when it seems hopeless. The effort and ability required to really understand cosmology, biochemistry, quantum theory, general relativity, astrophysics, genetics. etc., etc. is staggering. As I view and think about the debates in the many threads on this forum, I am so often deeply frustrated by my own deficiencies.
May that not be part of the genesis of crackpot science? Some people are simply unable or unwilling to admit to their inability to understand. So, they embrace some pseudoscience that is accessible and gives them the illusion of having accomplished what we all wish we could really do -- understand how the universe works. They become Dunning– Kruger effect junkies and crackpots for life. I believe we have several such people haunting these threads.
May that not be part of the genesis of crackpot science? Some people are simply unable or unwilling to admit to their inability to understand. So, they embrace some pseudoscience that is accessible and gives them the illusion of having accomplished what we all wish we could really do -- understand how the universe works. They become Dunning– Kruger effect junkies and crackpots for life. I believe we have several such people haunting these threads.
Yes, pretty much.
We certainly do. Have another look at this thread. Take care to distinguish the pseudoscience answers from the science answers. When you find out just how much pseudoscience is out there, it's scarey. And it isn't just the obvious stuff. Some of it is peddled as "mainstream science". We are regaled with time travel, brane theory, the multiverse, the anthropic principle, entropic gravity, the mathematical universe, the holographic universe... the list goes on.
In fact, there are so many physics crackpots that even the vast majority of people who write the textbooks and teach the university courses on physics are crackpots.
There's a simple answer actually: sincerity. Most of these people actually believe their theories.
Some "crackpot" theories have some merit to them and are posed by serious scientists like Einstein-Cartain-Evans theory, but turn crackpot after their promoters persist once the theory has been found to be mathematically inconsistent.
Other theories like E.S. Miksch's theory on negative matter and Mendel Sachs' quaternion formalism seem sound if you accept their definitions of their terms. In Sachs model, gravity isn't positive definite but mass is and Miksch had it the other way around.
Some "crackpot" theories have some merit to them and are posed by serious scientists like Einstein-Cartain-Evans theory, but turn crackpot after their promoters persist once the theory has been found to be mathematically inconsistent.
Other theories like E.S. Miksch's theory on negative matter and Mendel Sachs' quaternion formalism seem sound if you accept their definitions of their terms. In Sachs model, gravity isn't positive definite but mass is and Miksch had it the other way around.
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dafydd
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It means have you ever studied physics at college level. Obviously not.
W.D.Clinger
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