This is intended as an anti-bad science rant, so I’m putting it in the Pit.
How to know if you’re a crackpot:
Is your theory filled with acronyms (W.E.L.), verbal shorthand, or phrases that othe like MenOrg, DisOrg or (different theory) SeaOrg? Have you redefined chunks of the language (Clear)? (5 pts)
Does your device measure a strange new form of energy that no-one else, EVEN USING YOUR DEVICE can measure? (Orgone energy, for example) (10 pts)
Have you ever compared yourself to Galileo as in the following “They tried to supress Galileo, and he turned out to be RIGHT! So I must be right too!” (10 pts)
Have you dismissed Einstein in favor of Newton? (5 points) Did you do so because you don’t believe in “Jewish” science? (15 points)
Does your theory require that the world: is hollow, is flat, is inside out, goes around the sun due to “suction and pressure”, goes around the sun in a figure 8 shape, stays in place, but the rest of the universe rotates, etc? (10 points)
Do you believe that your theory is true even after double-blind tests prove it isn’t? (psychic comunication with autistic children, for example) (15 points)
Do you write your dissertations in rhyme? (DisOrgs tear down eternally/While MenOrgs build faithfully) or (Matter as of true a nature/As the Odiferious granules/Issuing from cryptic chambers/of a rose or honeysuckle) (25 points)
Does your theory involve trying to reconcile sexual energy and planetary motion? (10 points) Are you saying that because “Hey babe, wanna help demonstrate my theory of sexual energy and planetary motion?” is a great way to pick up cute coeds? (-20 points, but +10 sleaze points)
Was your theory so stupid that huge amounts of respectible science writers threated to pull their books from publishers because they didn’t want to be associated with you? (15 points)
Is there an organized conspiracy out to stop you from getting the recognition you so richly deserve from your ground-breaking work? (10 points) Is it a Jewish conspiracy? (15 points)
Did you get your theory from extra-terrestrials, angels/demons, ancient, mystic spirits from beyond the grave? (15 points)
Did you add up your total, think “Ok, I got a 55, but this doesn’t apply to my theory?” (20 points)
If your score is <0, (it’s possible) you’re probably a perv :D, but not a crackpot
If your score is 0-4, you’re fine
If your score is 5-9, you’re a little odd, but otherwise ok.
If your score is >10, you’re on the borderlands of being a crackpot.
If your score is >20, you are a crackpot.
If your score is >30, you’ve gone beyond crackpot and become a kook
If your score is >40, you may make the cover of Skeptic
Wait, wait! On question 10, about the conspiracy keeping my low-fat milk powered carburator off the market: do I get an ADDITIONAL fifteen points because the conspiracy is back by Zionists, or is that fifteen INSTEAD of ten points?
They only want to stop me because the Archangel Zanax says my device will prove the falsity of kosher dietary laws anyway. I’ll show you! I’ll show you all! I’m not insane, its all of YOU who are insane, and you want to steal my magic beans! Just like you did to Galileo!
I see somebody’s been reading Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science by Martin Gardner, a truly excellent book.
I would also recommend that anyone interested in how junk science is peddled to the unsuspecting public read Voodoo Science by Robert Park.
Now go away, I’m conducting a very important experiment.
By focusing my orgone energies, I can create a cold fusion reactor that will transmute lead into gold so I can pay the Thetans to clear away my engrams.
Thief!! I’m already way ahead of you on this. I’ve communicated with Galileo via Miss Cleo and he told me the secret to developing the reactor correctly; you are doomed to fail! Quit now! You’re project is probably backed by the Trilateral Commission anyway - you know they’re out to get you!!
I don’t have any scientific theories (alas!), but this thread has caused suppressed memories about a kook who used to hang out on the Usenet science BBs to resurface after many years.
Anyone ever encounter Ludwig (pronounced “logwig”) Plutonium in their travels round the net? His favorite rant was that Venus should be given an Earthlike orbit. Great stuff.
Nimune: The points are “instead of”, not “in addtion to.” Otherwise we will have Crackpot Inflation. And I simply won’t be a party to it.
S.W. Thanks for the compliment, but apparently I’ve been divied up by wring and Magdalene over here. You’ll have to take it up with them.
Goboy: Actually, rereading Fads and Fallacies. Wonderful book.
But one thing concerns me. You can’t power a cold-fusion reactor without Nazi Lunar Ice. And since we’re living on the inside of a hollow Earth and the moon is simply a reflection of the sunlight on the shell of the Earth, you can’t get there!. Unless you have a perpetual motion machine. Free energy and all that.
::eyes Goboy suspiciously::
::Wonders if Goboy knows of Fenris’s designs for a perpetual motion machine which utilizes the heat differential between the cold lettuce and the hot hamburger in a Big Mac.::
::runs furiously home to make sure that the plans are in a lead-foil lined safe::
Ahem. Yes, SexyWriter, mags and I keep him busy (tho’ IIRC, he may have one day ‘off’) That’s our Fenris!, faithful and true! Smart, witty, bibliophile, pun-tastic, a Bugs Bunny aficiando, likes Dim Sum. Sigh.
Sadly I had a dear friend who was trained in Facilitated Communication. She also was being treated for repressed memories of child sexual abuse. Nice woman. (tho’ there were other reasons to suspect the abuse).
Will need to check out the “Fads & Fallacies” book - is it still in print (we have the Voodoo Science one).
Soon I’ll have developed the cryo-orgo-nucleo-tinfoil-lined-erotica machine, and all of you will KNEEL BEFORE ME! FEAR MY WRATH! NONE SHALL STAND! ALL SHALL BE CRUSHED LIKE A BUG BENEATH MY BOOT OF RIGHTEOUS SCIENCE! MEN SHALL PLEAD FOR MERCY WHILE WOMEN THROW THEMSELVES AT ME IN A VAIN ATTEMPT TO PLACATE MY RAGING PRIMAL ANIMAL DESIRES!
[sub]pant pant pant[/sub]
I feel much better now, thanks.
[sub]But if any of you ladies want to throw yourselves at me, well, we can talk.[/sub]
Okay, so I think Jesus returned to earth on the Milennium, as scheduled. And of course, he came to America. He wandered around looking for prostitutes and tax collectors so he could tell them all about the good news. H&R Block Security had him removed and he got beat up by a few pimps. He preached the good news from several street corners until he was picked up for vagrancy and sent up to the state mental hospital where he languishes in a Thorazine haze. The Rapture can’t start until we go and let him out. But like, there are so many people pretending to be Jesus, how will we know which one is the real thing? So I suggest we let all the crazy people who claim to be Jesus out - things will sort themselves out.
(I’ve actually told this theory to annoying people on airplanes when they ignore my headphones and closed eyes and tell me about their grandchildren).
P.S. wring, we really should think something up to reward Fenris’ continuted affection and loyalty. He really is a prince among men, not like that fickle SuaSponte.
Well let us see:
[ol]
[li]Relativistic quantum mechanics is just crammed full of them 5pts.[/li][li]Well given I have no device for measuring any ‘new’ forms of energy, what do I get if I can predict a new energy source (although I doubt it will be usable in any efficient manner)? 0 pts (for now).[/li][li]Copernicus is one of my al time favourite observational scientists (does that count) 0 pts (didn’t think so) :([/li][li]Trying to get relativity to work on a quantum level may involve some slight modifications to both gentlemen’s theories, however this is due to a certain razor and not the ethnicity of the aforementioned scientists. 0 pts (you are not going to give me this either are you?).[/li][li]Hmm this is a hard one. Can I get away with saying "the exact objective shape or composition of any marco object and its properties are indeterminate? 5 pts (you have got to give them for trying)[/li][li]Double blind tests when measuring effects that are subjective by the nature of relativity are a little difficult to carry out. I would however be very sceptical of any results that came from such a double blind test so another 10 pts.[/li][li]I write poetry as well :). But trying to write mathematics in metre is beyond my skills 0 pts.[/li][li]I am trying to reconcile certain energy equations but unfortunately there is no sexual component to it as of yet. 0 pts. Why would I need such claims the girls just go gaga over my intellect :o[/li][li]No publisher wants anything to do with me, yet alone one that actually has other people with better track records to deal with. Once I have a solid foundation and some form of verifiable proof of my theories I hope this will change. (5 pts for being unpublishable)[/li][li]I assume there would be if they just knew about me. However I believe it will be lead by FOX who will suddenly have to find ‘real’ documentaries about facts to screen (I do not believe they are a Jewish organisation so I lose the points again, sigh).[/li][li]Extra terrestrials are a definite source of my theories. The motion of galaxies are one of the energy equations I am trying (very unsuccessfully) to balance 15 pts.[/li][li]I am under 55 pts sigh sigh sigh.[/li][/ol]
Total 40: I am a kook, I always suspect as much.
#1) My fault entirely, but the acronyms involved have to be ones that you made up and no-one else uses. -5 point. Sorry.
#2) Nope, prediction is actual science. Devices, preferably with lots of blinky colored lights are required to get points
#4) Nope. Modifying existing theories is science. Throwing Einstein out altoghther is kookery.
#5) Tell ya what. Throw in an obscure acronym, but don’t define it and you can have the five points.
#6) Hmmmm…Ok
#9) Unpublishable doesn’t count. The key is pissing off real scientists by being published.
#11) That, sir, was a magnificent tap-dance. ::Hands Britt a Laurel. And Hearty handshake:: You get the points, but I’m revising #11 to read "Extra-terrestrial aliens who are in psychic contact you or who have abducted you.
That puts you at a conditional 30 points, (you need to retype #5 with a real but undefined acronym, failure to do so drops you down to 25 points.)
#1) Acronyms no one else uses (outside the tight little circle of fellow devotees), I am sure obscure branches of physics count really. #5) CHUMPS Chronometrically Heuristically Unpredictable Miniscule Particle Strings. (I can define this, really )
I hope your happy now.
#9) Now could you please define ‘real’ scientist, as I seem to recall FOX often uses people who claim such titles, (whom I almost certainly could annoy), however you seem to be using the term in a much more restrictive sense of the word. I am sure if we could just form a union we could sue the lot of them for professional slander, it would sure beat the hell out of spending three months, trying to qualify for grants every six months.
Back up to 31 (surly between 1 and 9 and can scrounge a pt) and confirmed as a kook :).
PS I am sure kooks are better than crackpots, I mean at least we have wild flamboyance going for us.
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