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For those non-scientists trying to get their original ideas accepted by the scientific community, you've got to have thick skin. It might seem like there's a vast conspiracy, or a general attitude that drives away original, but unorthodox ideas. But that's not true, the reality is that great ideas in science come from everywhere, even [...]
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Order of Kilopi
Early in the episode:A crank is through behavior, not level of education.
If you have an idea, the first thing you have to do, is prove your idea. And this means, you have to sit down, you have to do your homework, find out what other people have already done, put your work within the context--do a compare-and-contrast essay. Basically, of your work. Mathematically and observationally and experimentally test your idea and if you don't have the facilities to test your idea, write down in detail what is necessary to test your idea.
Order of Kilopi
A crank is an assignment made to those who don't think the full body of observational evidence is consistent with well established scientific facts. There is no way on earth to be taken seriously by scientists if you challenge axioms that are accepted-canonized if you will, beyond any glimmer of doubt.
Order of Kilopi
As the podcast says, it's a behavior based assignment.Originally Posted by Jerry
There are a lot of people who investigate anomalous observational evidence without being called cranks.
Order of Kilopi
Everyone worth his salt investigates anomalies. If you conclude one or more long standing theories is wrong and badly biasing all active research, you are by definition a crank.
"Stigler’s law of eponyms states that “no scientific discovery is named after its original discover” and indeed Stigler did not discover that law either."
A.C. Fabian
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/0908.2784v1
Established Member
I would say: "If you conclude one or more long standing theories is wrong based on complete misunderstandings of said theory and the research conducted, you are by definition a crank."
Order of Kilopi
Planetary geophysicists are finally coming to grips with an observational reality: The outer solar system is littered with heavy metal that were not expected to be there.
For example, it is finally being conceded Iapetus has at least a thick layer of 'black stuff' underneath a coating of 'white stuff''; and that the leading hemisphere of Iapetus has more-or-less burned-off the 'white stuff' rather than colliding with 'black stuff'.
I'm calling it stuff, because that is what the articles tend to call it; but it is also known to be rich in irons, clays and other terrestrial 'stuff' not expected in quantity in the outer solar system: The basic theory of the solar system's development is being rewritten.
We have studied Titan almost hands-on for half a decade now, with no more realization of what this extraordinary moon is made out of; although it is clear from the dielectric constants and stuff it can no longer be assumed that the surface of Titan is dominated by water-ice and/or ammonia. We know what it isn't, but not what it is.
What will New Horizons find at Pluto? Ice and CO2 snow, or in defiance of Newtonian theory, a system of objects made primarily of irons and clays? Today, it takes a crank theory to predict irons and clays. It will be difficult to look at a surfaces dominated by heavy metals and conclude that lots of ice and cavarns dominate the underlying strata of these differentiated bodies. But such a model will be proposed, because to say that the density estimates are bad requires a conclusion that Newtonian physics are bad, and that is a crank call. One would have to conclude long-standing theories are wrong. Again.
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