What are the effects of crackpot addiction on scientific discourse?

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The discussion revolves around the enjoyment and addiction to reading and analyzing crackpot theories posted on forums like Physics Forums (PF). Participants express a mix of amusement and superiority when encountering these convoluted ideas, while also recognizing the need to maintain the integrity of the forum by limiting such posts. There is a suggestion for a dedicated space, like a "Crackpot Corner," to archive these theories without compromising the forum's standards. Despite the humor found in these discussions, there's a consensus that true crackpots are unlikely to accept rational arguments against their claims. Ultimately, the community finds entertainment in these eccentric theories while grappling with the challenge of managing their presence online.
Bandersnatch
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I need help. I don't know what to do.

Every time I see a crackpot posting on PF I'm going into an ecstatic state of utmost glee. I gobble up the convoluted effusions as if they were celestial ambrosia. I wallow in the pungent fragrance of confused and misapplied terminology. I feel my soul raising to heights rarely seen otherwise, and tell myself that I simply find amusement in undoing the conceptual knots that people can tie themselves into. As if it was a good-hearted, bening thing.

But I know, oh I know. I enjoy it so because it makes me feel superior to my fellow man. I am vain, and I don't want to be! But those crackpots keep coming back, and I can't deny myself another fix. I am addicted.

Just now I saw another one, a magnificent specimen scoring in the hundreds on the crackpot index. I couldn't help but enjoy ticking off the boxes as I kept reading(and watching his videos). I even stooped as low as to sneer at his horrible, horrible English.

Help! I need a support group of like-minded, I mean, similarly-afflicted individuals. Perhaps even, oh I can't say that... I will say that - perhaps even a thread where all the fabulous crackpot posts could be reposted(and not deleted by our gracious mods) for the sole purpose of providing aesthetic pleasure. As a medicinal dose, of course. A legalised, regulated medicinal dose. One cannot simply go cold turkey on crackpots after all. It might result in some analogue of delirium tremens, or worse!
 
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I am a reformed crackpot, now i just get things wrong, but i am dealing with that :]
 
Try a web search for skycentrism.
 
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Are there still crackpots posting on PF? I haven't seen one in a long time. Would like some links.
 
DataGG said:
Are there still crackpots posting on PF? I haven't seen one in a long time. Would like some links.
We delete most of them.

The internet is full of them, so if you want to see crackpot theories, google will help.
 
DataGG said:
Are there still crackpots posting on PF? I haven't seen one in a long time.

Thank you. You just confirmed we are effective.
 
Borek said:
Thank you. You just confirmed we are effective.
Yes you are, and (most of, OP excluded) the PF community is very thankful for that.
 
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montadhar said:
Yes you are, and (most of, OP excluded) the PF community is very thankful for that.
I am too.

I enjoy the occasional crackpot paper but we don't want them piling up in the forums. That'll just attract other crackpots.
 
  • #10
DataGG said:
Are there still crackpots posting on PF? I haven't seen one in a long time. Would like some links.

Well, there's usually people throwing around the same weird uninformed ideas like consciousness in quantum mechanics.
 
  • #11
Jimmy said:
I remember this recent one:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/theory-for-gravity.770841/

Oh, yeah. I remember that one for sure, it was quite a treat. Must have sent Bandersmatch into paroxysms of joy since he insisted on it not being deleted, but preserved (presumably to feed his guilty habit on nights when he couldn't sleep. :p )
 
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  • #12
phinds said:
Oh, yeah. I remember that one for sure, it was quite a treat. Must have sent Bandersmatch into paroxysms of joy since he insisted on it not being deleted, but preserved (presumably to feed his guilty habit on nights when he couldn't sleep. :p )

Ha! I was a little surprised Dale went along with it.

I think we have a UFO enthusiast in our midst as well. He's being careful with his posts though...
 
  • #13
It's slightly amusing when someone follows up their ludicrous, disputed by evidence, assertions with a cry of outrage at how Physicists are somehow out of tune with the facts.
 
  • #14
jz92wjaz said:
...follows up their ludicrous, disputed by evidence, assertions with a cry of outrage at how Physicists are somehow out of tune with the facts.
That's random mutation that'll lead to something unknown in advance.
 
  • #15
Bandersnatch said:
I even stooped as low as to sneer at his horrible, horrible English.

Hey, don't be such a grammar nazi. He was a Pole. When English is your second language you have to make a choice, you can either polish your English, or your crackpot theories. There is simply no time in life for both.
 
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  • #16
I enjoy crackpots which are just over-the-top insane. Have you seen this?: http://www.templeos.org/

It's beautiful.
 
  • #17
DataGG said:
Are there still crackpots posting on PF? I haven't seen one in a long time. Would like some links.

How you doing?
=)
 
  • #18
Borek said:
He was a Pole...you can either polish your English
Did you intend that as a 'double-entendre'...? :D
 
  • #19
dipole said:
I enjoy crackpots which are just over-the-top insane. Have you seen this?: http://www.templeos.org/

It's beautiful.

ohhh wow ... the mind boggles ;)
 
  • #20
It's always fun to use a mix of existing terminology that's not related to confuse a crackpot.
Especially when they immediately use the proposed nonsense to 'prove' their claim...

Do not use this before determining he or she isn't going to accept serious answers disproving their claims.
 
  • #22
JorisL said:
Do not use this before determining he or she isn't going to accept serious answers disproving their claims.

You miss the point. Part of the DEFINTION of crackpot is that they are not going to accept serious answers disproving their claims. They are not going to accept frivolous answers disproving their claims. They are not going to accept ANY answers disproving their claims.
 
  • #23
phinds said:
You miss the point. Part of the DEFINTION of crackpot is that they are not going to accept serious answers disproving their claims. They are not going to accept frivolous answers disproving their claims. They are not going to accept ANY answers disproving their claims.

Sometimes they are genuinely confused and think they are right because they are uninformed. Some of those do accept sound advise and reasoning. (although they are rare)

edit: it's easy to mix these persons. I tend to use 't Hoofts list which has yielded results e.g. make them understand they aren't well-versed yet to posit a new theory
 
  • #24
JorisL said:
Sometimes they are genuinely confused and think they are right because they are uninformed. Some of those do accept sound advise and reasoning. (although they are rare)
Really rare, yes. And those usually do not present their ideas as "new theory".
 
  • #25
mfb said:
Really rare, yes. And those usually do not present their ideas as "new theory".

They do have the same belief in their ideas and are often equally hard to convince. To the point threads being closed because they do not accept valid explanations.

At least this is how I'm inclined to 'see the good' in amateurs. (to avoid having a very similar discussion in this thread ~_~')
 
  • #26
As the proud owner of the pf user name bluntwcrackrap, I find this very offensive to crackpots everywhere. You won't suck my soul and steal my ideas! Deathray activate! :p
 
  • #27
You people crack me up. What is so wrong with the crackpots out there? After all shouldn't they be entitled to their own folly too? I think (which is where I usually get into trouble) that this is just a fun loving group that actually lives in a slightly altered reality. On their planet, or whatever they call it, all is well and only looking better. So please let them believe what they will and take what they offer as more fiction than fact. Besides making them look at a different view only frightens them and they do frighten easily. That would chase them away and ruin the fun that all can enjoy. Go ahead be unhappy with me but I for one find the ideas presented entertaining. Besides that, the only way you can be an addict is if there is something to feed off of.
 
  • #28
jmeps said:
After all shouldn't they be entitled to their own folly too?

They are.

Just not here.
 
  • #29
jmeps said:
Besides making them look at a different view only frightens them and they do frighten easily.
This one bit, good sir, shows that you haven't actually met a crackpot in your life. They are indomitable like the Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail.
 
  • #30
And if you scare them off where is the fun?
 
  • #31
Borek said:
They are.

Just not here.

Okay point taken. Let them go play elsewhere.
 
  • #32
jmeps said:
And if you scare them off where is the fun?
No need to scare them. I would rather create new subforum with name "Crackpot corner". All crackpots' posts would be sent there, not deleted :)
 
  • #33
zoki85 said:
I would rather create new subforum with name "Crackpot corner".

Feel free to do so, http://crackpot-corner.com/ seems to be available.
 
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  • #34
zoki85 said:
No need to scare them. I would rather create new subforum with name "Crackpot corner". All crackpots' posts would be sent there, not deleted :)
Yeah, the sentiment is nice, but the sad reality is that they would come there and either complain or peddle their wares, thus compromising the integrity and good standing of PF.

In my personal opinion, it's better to use their ephemeric presence on PF to fuel one's creative side. Maybe distill what you saw into an epitaph(and post it in this thread!), or write a solemn ode to the crackpots(in iambic pentameter) covering all the main points of their post without being explicit enough to attract the attention of them or their kin.
 
  • #35
Bandersnatch said:
without being explicit enough to attract the attention

of Mentors.
 
  • #36
Borek said:
of Mentors.
Hey, I was trying to be subtle!
 
  • #37
In my experience being subtle on internet doesn't work.
 
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  • #38
Borek said:
Feel free to do so, http://crackpot-corner.com/ seems to be available.
Now there's an idea. I'll have look into that. I can even bring Bandersnatch on board to pick the most beautiful posts. I can then have them placed on the front page as the "Featured Threads", just like PF. But we cannot use a name like http://crackpot-corner.com/ because true crackpots don't believe they are crackpots. It would have to be a charlatan science forum. But wait... the internet already has those. Never mind.
 
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  • #39
There was one earlier today, who drew a diagram of a magneto(i.e., a bicycle dynamo) and wanted to send it to space where, he claimed, no air drag would mean it'd never stop producing electricity. He called it "vacuum energy". Because it involved energy and vacuum, obviously.
 
  • #40
TurtleMeister said:
Now there's an idea. I'll have look into that. I can even bring Bandersnatch on board to pick the most beautiful posts. I can then have them placed on the front page as the "Featured Threads", just like PF. But we cannot use a name like http://crackpot-corner.com/ because true crackpots don't believe they are crackpots. It would have to be a charlatan science forum. But wait... the internet already has those. Never mind.
I think the idea was to present selected crackpot theories there. You don't need the actual crackpots on the site.

Bandersnatch said:
There was one earlier today, who drew a diagram of a magneto(i.e., a bicycle dynamo) and wanted to send it to space where, he claimed, no air drag would mean it'd never stop producing electricity. He called it "vacuum energy". Because it involved energy and vacuum, obviously.
And because you cannot create a vacuum on earth. And because all power plants just use fuel to counter air drag. Funny thing.
 
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  • #41
I remember one that made me cringe tears. The claim was that water refracts light because light travels slower in water than in air <...so far so good...>, and that's because water has mass and due to Einstein's general relativity the light undergoes gravitational time dilation when in water and thus travels slower <gahhh! cringe Ahhagggg :H>.

Fortunately, it was on a different site than PF.
 
  • #42
< --- Possibly off topic post --- >

Bandersnatch said:
There was one earlier today, who drew a diagram of a magneto(i.e., a bicycle dynamo) and wanted to send it to space where, he claimed, no air drag would mean it'd never stop producing electricity. He called it "vacuum energy". Because it involved energy and vacuum, obviously.

That reminds me of wonderful experiment that should be taught to children in science class.

Materials:
  • Dynamo (could be a magneto system attached to a wheel, or could be a hand crank dynamo system).
  • Light bulb (an incandescent light bulb might work best: something with relatively low resistance and is not too sensitive to varying voltage. If necessary, connect the bulbs in series and/or parallel such that the combined rated voltage roughly matches the dynamo's voltage when cranked really hard. I.e., you want the bulb/bulbs to light up, but you don't want them to burn out).
  • Switch and wires (allowing you to connect the dynamo to the light bulb, and switch the circuit open and closed).
Instructions:
(a) Have the student crank the dynamo with the switch open (no current flowing to light bulb/bulbs). The student will likely say, "oh, this is easy! :)"
(b) Flip the switch, closing the circuit, all else being the same (now the light bulb lights up when the cranking occurs). The student now has to apply significant effort to turn the crank, and likely says, "oh, this is not so easy anymore. :eek:"​

It might be the first time the student realizes that leaving the bedroom, kitchen and/or hallway lights on means that somewhere, someone or something needs to put a lot more effort into turning a crank.

</ --- Possibly off topic post --- />
 
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  • #43
collinsmark said:
</ --- Possibly off topic post --- />
No way! It's a "two-fer"! :)
1) It truly is an excellent demonstrative - I agree with the "wonderful" and "should be taught" parts.

2) But it can be viewed on topic if you take a moment to remember how crackpots view the world.
With his creativity fueling the addiction, I can see B'snatch posting a video of this experiment, ... with the knife switch strategically oriented vertically upward rising above the wiring platform, and the light bulbs pointing downward so filaments are below the platform. The demonstration is done just as you've described and the proper explanation provided.

O.K. Hook is baited and in the water. Time to sit back, smile, relax, and... How long do y'all think it would it take someone to post their alternate theory, that the electrons didn't have to be pushed up the hill until the switch was closed?
 
  • #44
I read an old thread yesterday that had me laughing.
The author asked if energy was "flat", based on the following argument:
E=Mc2 implies E=M m2/s2
And since distance squared defines a plane, energy is therefore flat.
​
I suppose by that logic, mass can be considered time squared?
M = E * s2/m2

So mass is flat time?

o_O
 
  • #46
  • #47
Hmm, I wonder, does a programmer who just needs "an equation" describing 3-dimensional time evolution of a cyclic universe, so that he can casually lend his skills to write a program calculating the totality of the past and future history of the universe/multiverse(it's a bit hard to follow), qualify as a crackpot or is just somewhat naive?

He did drop the phrase "Einstein's idea" a few times, which is as good an indication as any, but his demeanour was so confusing, that I'm not sure if my junkie bone is justified in tingling.
 
  • #48
Jimmy said:
Try a web search for skycentrism.

*gasps for breath*

I did it... oh god I shouldn't have but I did... what has been seen cannot be unseen!
 
  • #49
Never forget that crackpots are the forefathers of science.
 
  • #50
HomogenousCow said:
Never forget that crackpots are the forefathers of science.

No they aren't.
 
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