Should the GD forum allow more unconventional theories?

[EnumaElish]

For the most part the PF does a good job of sorting the fist-thumping, crazy-with-an-agenda "theory" from the high-school-kid, crazy-sounding-question sort of "theory," but sometimes I wonder whether the GD forum should assume a grater "risk" of letting the odd crazeball theory in, rather than locking out the innocent "crazy" thought.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Evo]

We used to have a sub forum called "Theory Development" that became so overrun with crackpots we had to close it down.

 

[Integral]

The sole reason for existence of the Theory Development forum was a garbage can. Posts which now would be deleted with an infraction would simply be moved to TD. Early on many of us would attempt to point out the errors in the "theories". It became clear that it was a relentless Herculean task. No one EVER said, "Oh I see, guess I was wrong". It was then as now, the crackery the pot the more convinced they are that they alone have the in site.

It was a happy day for the staff when we abandoned TD for the initial efforts at the modern policy of simply deleting.

Enuma, there are many sites on the internet which love such discussions as you speak of. If you have such a topic, I encourage you to post it somewhere else. If it were a matter of a quick admisson of error there would be no problem. Unfortunatly it doesn't work that way. We have decided that this site is for people who want to learn. Those who already know everything do not fit in here.

 

[dlgoff]

We have decided that this site is for people who want to learn. Those who already know everything do not fit in here.

 

[EnumaElish]

I had in mind "something like" the locked GD thread in which the OP inquired about the possibility of "negative dimensions" as a theoretical concept: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=407054

As it turns out, the mathematician Mandelbrot had posited such a mathematical object:

My work is more varied than at any other point in my life. I am still carrying out research in pure mathematics. And I am working on an idea that I had several years ago on negative dimensions. ... Negative dimensions are a way of measuring how empty something is. In mathematics, only one set is called empty. It contains nothing whatsoever. But I argued that some sets are emptier than others in a certain useful way. It is an idea that almost everyone greets with great suspicion, thinking I've gone soft in the brain in my old age. Then I explain it and people realize it is obvious. Now I'm developing the idea fully with a colleague. I have high hopes that once we write it down properly and give a few lectures about it at suitable places that negative dimensions will become standard in mathematics.

(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benoît_Mandelbrot)

and published it: http://www.math.yale.edu/~bbm3/web_pdfs/123negativeFractalDimensions.pdf

But since the thread has been locked, I have no way of posting this information in relation to the OP.

 

[Redbelly98]

While there is a concept of negative dimensions in mathematics, the OP in the referred thread actually said "The theory I came up is...". It was not a discussion about the accepted notion of negative dimensions.

 

[EnumaElish]

Maybe there should be a sticky that says:

If you have a personal theory/method XYZ, look it up on the web to see if anyone has thought it before. If they haven't, you may post it as a question, such as "is XYZ an accepted notion in science?"

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you have a personal theory/method XYZ, look it up on the web to see if anyone has thought it before. If they haven't, you may post it as a question, such as "is XYZ an accepted notion in science?"

I think this is hopeless. Once a month or so, we get a post by a newcomer who has a "new theory of gravity". The theory they are describing is more than three centuries old.

 

[Moonbear]

We still have the Independent Research forum, which is heavily moderated. The guidelines there seem like a lot, but they really only boil down to checking that someone has actually read and cited an halfway decent amount of background literature to show they are coming up with their theory/research topic based on some grounding in the peer-reviewed literature, can write a logically organized discussion about it, and don't ignore the most recent century or two of literature. In other words, the guidelines are there to make sure the theories weren't just pulled out of their butt and actually have some merit for discussion, whether they are a little far-fetched or not.