In light of some recent posts, I think it is worth reproducing this scoring metric for crackpottery here.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

I am sure many people have seen it before.

Obviously, this metric is weighted towards Physics.

There is another based on this but more concerned with Evolutionary theory here:

http://talkrational.org/showthread.php?t=16684

That's really good and I've not actually seen this before. Perhaps there should be one for alternative medicine.

Instead of replying to creationists we should just give them a rating and leave it at that.

Paul G wrote:Instead of replying to creationists we should just give them a rating and leave it at that.

And then spend the rest of the post arguing about the score, then averaging it out, to the complete bafflement of the visiting creotard.
That has merit.

very much. Would make things a lot easier.

I have a feeling the mods will look none too kindly on that - more's the pity.

This struck me as a plausible measuring tool:

Spearthrower wrote:This struck me as a plausible measuring tool:

I like it.

Quality thread Spearthrower, good work.

Wow! I think this guy would win the most crackpot points: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQSJMVl2Vyo[/youtube]

XD, Even that guy sounds SANE when paralleled with the likes of a certain John Searl ! The meister of crackpotology, who, to this day, manages to convince the dumb and unwitting into the belief that energy can be extracted from a bunch of spinning magnets !
(NTM the antigravity B.S. which accompanies the 'team Searl' nonsense) !
I reckon Searl is the fairy on the top of the tree !

5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".

Regina wrote:

5 points for each mention of "Einstien", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".

Even better in combination with #20: "20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index. (E.g., saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.)"