Posted on 01/10/2002 10:56:06 AM PST by buaya
THE CRACKPOT INDEX A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics.
A -5 point starting credit.
1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.
2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.
3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.
5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.
5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.
5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).
5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".
10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.
10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it.
10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.
10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.
10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".
10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.
10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".
10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".
20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.
20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).
20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.
20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".
20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".
30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)
30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.
30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).
40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.
40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.
40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)
50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.
10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence)
I am not alone as a scientist and engineer to point out that if a theory requires as one of its foundation elements a probability function anywhere in its defining equations, then the necessary science behind the hypothesis is "incomplete" and unknowns exist that may extend and revise the current theory. Using statistical physics to prove natural science is problematic - it allows one to create good working guidance for experiments and even engineering but it does not mean that one knows (completely) what one is talking about. It does signify that one (including most quantum theory adherents) wants to believe that the work is done and understood when it may only be a parlor-trick. The evidence against QT is that it requires two levels of reality and physics when a simpler explanation (not discovered yet) should permit physical laws to be enforced at both the subatomic and macro (our) world levels simultaneously. Do I qualify?
Yes, yes, all very funny, but---
This kind of thinking glosses over the interesting fact that THERE IS NO PARTICULAR CONNECTION between a person's "sanity" and the possibility that they may make a great contribution to society.
Newton was SO religious that people today would call him a nut.
Galileo was SO obnoxious that today he'd almost certainly be sued out of any academic or business setting.
And, in other contexts, such as the arts, people like Paul Cezanne were flat out crazy...
(In fact, if you make a list of "influential" people from the past, it's difficult to find _anyone_ who wouldn't be called a crackpot for one reason or another today.)
Maginalizing people because they don't fit socially is a pretty bad practice because the whole world then misses out on the potential contributions such people can make.
Mark W.
His THEORY on gravity is just a theory. It is not the truth.
Everyone should know that gravity is nothing more then microscopic white men holding everyone down.
For every nut who turns out to be right, there are a million nuts who are crackpots. But because the media, and the world of film, etc. LOVES the nuts who are right, every nut who is full of it convinces themselves that THEY are one of those special nuts that are right.
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He's not a conspirator.
The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.
Ooooooh, yeah. I myself am a longtime veteran of alt.sci.physics.new-theories, although I spend much more time on FR nowadays.
That was a viable position until Bell's Inequality came along. All possible local hidden variable models have been disproven by experiment. If quantum mechanics isn't complete, we can at least say with confidence that it is as complete a model as physical reality will permit.
Actually her cousin, if I am not mistaken.
Not so. Bohm's pilot wave model is a perfectly viable hidden variable model. In fact, I seem to recall Bell having been influenced by it in deriving his theorem.
Well, you get 10 points.
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