Professional organizations, uncontroversially, regularly set limits on what kinds of topics can be considered for discussion. If I pitch a talk on homeopathy t

Professional organizations, uncontroversially, regularly set limits on what kinds of topics can be considered for discussion. If I pitch a talk on homeopathy to the American Medical Association's next conference I fully expect them to reject me. Even if I was a fully credentialed M.D. - much less someone with just an undergraduate degree - I wouldn't expect them to compromise with me. Why do we not treat our general discourse similarly? Why don't we demand a minimum threshold based on, say, the same criteria we use in a court of law: internal consistency, causal-based, preponderance of evidence, etc. If one can't meet this minimum threshold then the others incur a penalty: being robbed the time and attention for those ideas that meet and exceed the threshold.