You reminded me of this episode of the NPR radio show This American Life (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=293 http://www.thisamerican

You reminded me of this episode of the NPR radio show This American Life (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=293 http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=2...) entitled "A Little bit of Knowledge". In the third act "Sucker MC-Squared" an electrician and amateur physics enthusiast thinks he has disproved Einstein. He finally gets an academic to meet with him to hear his ideas but won't accept it when the academic points out the flaws in his reasoning. Throughout the story the electrician insists that the math isn't important, that he's right even though he can't express the math behind his ideas. He thinks the academics are being elitist (or, as you write "anti-amateur") just because they insist on using math.