Skulls in the Stars

Science and technology have progressed rapidly over the past fifty years, and access to this knowledge and opposing viewpoints has grown rapidly as well, thanks to the internet. Unfortunately, not all of these opposing viewpoints are reasonable, and many come from genuine crackpots. For the non-technical reader, it can be difficult to separate the legitimate science from the crazy nonsense, both because the actual science often sounds crazy (invisibility cloaks, for instance) and the crackpots can mask their nonsense with plausible-sounding technobabble. How does a non-specialist distinguish between a legitimate scientist and a crackpot?

This question motivated me to write this post, “A Brief Field Guide to Scientific Crackpots”. We will look at a number of common attitudes possessed by such cranks, any of which should raise warning flags if encountered. Hopefully such a list will help people navigate the often treacherous world of scientific thinking without colliding with pseudo-scientific icebergs.

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