How often do you encounter crackpots?

[Chris11]

Hey, I'm a science student (obviously), and about 1/3 of the time when I tell someone that I am one, they tell me their crackpot 'theory.' For instance, I work part time at a grocery store, and someone said: "dark matter: we have no idea what it is right?" I said that we have some idea, but it is quite mysterious. Then she said: "Well, here's my theory. Dark matter is what's there when there's nothing there, like a vacume." I told her that if she accepted that then, we wouldn't exist since we're mostly empty space, with nucluli in oscilation, meaning that empty space would consist of dark matter, which when the nuclus entered, as it inevitable would, we would get some anhilation. She replied by saying "well, how do you know that's not happening, and something else isn't replacing it?" End of conversation. This is what she said after ranting about how intelligent she thinks she is.

 

[snafupants]

How is it obvious that you are a science student?

 

[IfloatTHRUlife]

You spelled vacuum wrong.

 

[Aramea]

Don't many scientific discoveries start out as "crackpot" ideas? I have had a few of them myself.

 

[Jah]

Everybody has "theories"

It's just one of those things you have to accept.


Take one of mine; I think photons are flat, (That is due to relativity they get squished (Lorenz transformation in the direction of movement) ) and that the frequency may be a spin property. Which roughly translates to angular momentum.


Of course, this isn't even a scientific theory, it's just "theories".


But most people have these things they think about, and the narrative of how they may have the solution is a very pleasing thought. We want to be special.

I mean, ever heard Karl Pilkington ? :

YouTube - ‪Top 10 Funniest/Stupid Things Karl Pilkington Has Ever Said‬‏

 

[Chris11]

You spelled vacuum wrong.

Who cares?

 

[Chris11]

How is it obvious that you are a science student?

Because I stated it ;p

 

[Jordan~]

Here? About every fifteen seconds. It's better than YouTube, though.

 

[Dimensional Transition]

I mean, ever heard Karl Pilkington ? :

YouTube - ‪Top 10 Funniest/Stupid Things Karl Pilkington Has Ever Said‬‏

Ahahahah, oh man, is this guy serious?

Also, crackpots... I encounter them occasionally, I guess. I'm not really bothered by it. Everybody has his own ideas, occasionally there's someone with extremely illogical ones, but yeah, I don't mind too much.

 

[Jah]

Yes. Karl is real:


YouTube - ‪Karl Pilkington on Christmas‬‏

Notice the "Imagine if I bothered writing this." around 2:20 - 2:30...
I mean. The stuff that comes out of his mouth.

You couldn't write that sort of stuff.
AND have somebody being that serious when he reads it.

 

[Bird]

I really thought this was going to be about crackheads
and this was some kind of slang and I was like, "LOL".

 

[Jordan~]

I really thought this was going to be about crackheads
and this was some kind of slang and I was like, "LOL".

"All the time, my neighbourhood is grim."

 

[Bird]

"All the time, my neighbourhood is grim."

I would have chosen a different adjective.


I've never experienced a crackhead. But someone
came into my work tweaking so bad about two
weeks ago. It was kinda scary for me. What was
even more odd about it was that when people get
like that, they don't even notice they can't control
their body. That really freaks me out. You're twitching
and your limbs are lurching like crazy and you don't
even know. You think you're just normal.

 

[Jordan~]

Me neither, I actually live in the suburbs. :P
I've seen them in The Scheme, but I don't think that counts. That is grim. And really sad. And also really encouraging at times, you really start to root for them and get involved in the highs and lows of their lives. Crying with them one moment, laughing with them the next. It's kinda trashy, maybe, but I love it. It's come under some flak for being supposedly exploitative, but I don't think it is. There's nothing exploitative about sympathising with people or displaying the harsh reality of the ignored poverty that exists right under our noses. In my cosy, cossetted middle class bubble, I didn't realise people actually lived like that.

 

[Dimensional Transition]

I really thought this was going to be about crackheads
and this was some kind of slang and I was like, "LOL".

Ahahah, I thought the same. I looked up 'crackpot' online because the first post didn't make sense at all to me, I thought: "What does this have to do with crack?"

 

[Vrecknidj]

I don't think that it's crackpots, per se, that you're encountering. Rather, I think you're encountering the relatively uninformed public.

Most Americans, for instance, are terribly illiterate scientifically. Almost no one has any idea what gravity is, and if you ask them something like "How come the Earth just keeps going around the Sun, like a tether ball around a pole, even though there's no tether?" they won't have a clue what you're talking about.

Most Americans have a blend of Thomistic and Newtonian worldview, with a reasonable dash of Disney-inspired Protestantism thrown in. When you say "Noah's Ark," even though most of them have never read the Old Testament and have no ideas about things nautical, they imagine pairs of giraffes and the like. Some of them will even agree that, once upon a time, it rained steadily, on the whole planet, for 40 days and 40 nights in a row (though not a one of them will give you any information that makes any sense about where all the precipitation came from, how that much evaporation or condensation could have taken place, etc.).

So, you just have to put up with people giving you their theories. I have learned to find ways to steer their conversations to a quick end so that I don't have to put up with them.

Dave

 

[Oblivious]

You guys are doing it wrong. You are supposed to FEED their superstitions, or use them to support your own crackpot theories.

The following is a proper example:
If God created the Earth, it means that he was around before the Earth was created, meaning he is not of or from Earth. Therefore by definition, God is an Alien. If we were created in his image, we are Aliens too.

 

[SkyWalker]

Low IQ people can be nice friends if they trust you. They will assume you know better and will listen to you and follow you. You can open that line of trust by providing for them somehow or if they can admire you for something without any envy.

But if they don't trust you, then they are very annoying. They wont listen. It's all about trust. Although some are unfixable and have distrust for everyone, these should be avoided.

Very distrusting people can also be of higher IQ, but the distrust makes them a lot more "stupid", it stops them from properly taking in information from any source (even science), simply because they distrust everything. They can only learn through experience. They even do the opposite of advice, on purpose. So they have to learn the hard way, and because this way is hard, they will be even more bitter and blame others for it even more....

 

[SkyWalker]

If God created the Earth, it means that he was around before the Earth was created, meaning he is not of or from Earth. Therefore by definition, God is an Alien. If we were created in his image, we are Aliens too.

That's a lot easier than explaining that God is our own unconscious. (Maybe I should switch to you strategy next time)

 

[pjoa09]

I have encountered an actual cracked pot. Bet none of you have.

@Dave : I don't understand the phrase 'scientifically illiterate' in your context. They are simply misinformed and not curious. These morons attempt to utilize philosophy to make them feel smarter than others. I can't even say period right now. I mean, if I did and then I put the period symbol then it should read 'period period'. If I put the period symbol behind that we will be in a world of countless periods and blood will be everywhere. Ok.

Try finding one of those morons on Youtube. They prove their intelligence quite well.

 

[EditorOne]

Don't many scientific discoveries start out as "crackpot" ideas? I have had a few of them myself.

No, Aramea, you have had creative, innovative bursts of intuition. A crackpot is more like wildly foolish, that is, believes something even when the evidence shows it to be untenable. The idea that the law of gravity can be repealed is a crackpot notion. The idea that we can harness gravity in ways that multiply or divide its effect is a creative, innovative line of thought that gets us a bit farther toward understanding black holes, relativity and many other things. (Caveat: What I understand about black holes and relativity, and gravity, for that matter, can fit in a thimble. "I'm just sayin'" for an example.)

I meet both crackpots and the enthusiastically ignorant, which is what the Original Poster seems to have encountered, every time I go out the door. It's a real disincentive toward socializing. :-)

 

[mainiac]

Well sometimes you have a point. But I consider YOU a practioner in miane stream science who is a (crackpot in training) You dismiss out of hand that wich you do not understand. You ridicule ideas that fly in the face of your dogma. You are arragant and egotistical to think that your way is the only way to understand or explaine the universe. You call things you cannot analize with your imperfect science..anomalies, or you offer moronic theories as to why it can not be exactly what it appears to be. All that you think you know was understood far better in the ancient past. You will not acknowledge this becasue again it disputes your current methodology. You ignor the ancient writings as myths, you dismiss the physical eveidence left behind world wide and say that 100 ton blocks of very hard stone were cut and placed with percsion by people with crude chisels and wooden levers.


You explaine away ancient ufo etchings in stone as anything but what it appears to be. Despite the fact that the culture involved may have ancient stories validating the etchings. When ever it fits into your own dogma, it is them published and not ignored or ridiculed. You are suppose to study what you do not understand and then spread the truth to humanity. Not hide the truth or out right lie. Its a shame more dont question some of the absurd staements that comes out of maine stream science. But like any institution they have masses of folks that buy into every word because they just dont care enoug to investigate for themselfs..lucky for you!