> That's a really clear characterization of a whole range of "alt" fields.
Well, they're all very similar in outlook and methods.
First, there's reality.
Next, there's people attempting to understand reality, using honest technique and investigation and sound reasoning. That group is, with some unfortunate counterexamples, "The Establishment" inasmuch as an establishment can be said to exist: They're all looking at the same thing, reasoning about the same experiments, and, on occasion, running experiments of their own, so they're going to form a rough consensus about what reality is and how it works.
Now come the cranks, the alt-science crowd, who must reify that rough consensus into a unified and powerful conspiracy called "The Establishment" in order to justify their own inability to get taken seriously. Never mind that they never do work which is both original and worthwhile, no, it must be "The Establishment" preventing them from succeeding and being hailed as geniuses.
Honestly, I doubt the alt-science crowd is very unified, either. Some of them are honestly mentally ill. Others are completely sane but suffering from cognitive biases and, probably, enhanced egos, preventing them from being humble enough before reality to accept that the consensus is the consensus for a reason. Others are outright charlatans, the Kevin Trudeaus and the chiropractors and the homeopaths and the crystal healers, who would be impoverished were the FDA and FTC empowered to act strongly enough in the best interests of the population.
And most are merely followers, people who lack the knowledge and insight to do anything original but love the feeling that they're better than you, bucko, because they've seen through the lies and know better and did all of it without any actual mental effort on their part, without even having to be challenged enough to alter their intuitions about things. No, their intuition isn't wrong, the whole system is conspiring to make it seem like they might have to change their mind about something.
> Anomaly hunting alone is basically scientific whataboutism, and as you say looks like research until you contrast it with the richness of fields where actual progress is being made.
Anomaly hunting varies from missing the forest for the trees to insisting that the fact this specific tree looks to have minor bark damage means the whole forest is fake and the entire notion of plants must be called into question. It can look like a touching belief in the perfection of organizations (like, them getting all het up about recordkeeping deficiencies makes it look like they think organizations always keep the records perfectly in order) until you realize they're trying to nitpick away the Holocaust.