If it quacks like a duck... There are crackpot ideas tightly knit to a group identity like anti-vaccinations, flatearth, and so on. One way to identify crackpo

If it quacks like a duck... There are crackpot ideas tightly knit to a group identity like anti-vaccinations, flatearth, and so on. One way to identify crackpots is to look at the idea and figure out is it's presentation more like your CS 101 / physics 101 etc course or some nice respected physics paper, or more like one of the known looney scenes - flatearth, antivaxx, Meyers Briggs, Scientology etc. Then there are the lone looneys. If you don't know what they are talking about - at all - it's best to do some cursory education in the field using some or the other open university resources. So, rule of thumb - look what an anti-vaxx scene looks like, look what a physics basic course looks like, and figure out is it more like one or the other. Stuff that looks like some other looney stuff usually is looney stuff as well. Saying looney for a looney is completely different from disregarding new valid ideas. An example of a borderline case is the 'reactionleas thruster' they've been testing around the world. It would be awesome if it worked. It's a new idea, goes completely against physics. But it's has sufficient testing data to at least merit a second look by third parties.