When I was at university, all the physicists loved to humblebrag about the “crackpots” that came to them, and how much dumber they were than real physicists. They had a similar but less pronounced snobbish dislike for students from other faculties, like engineering.

The thing is, most of them (with a couple of exceptions) weren’t actually any smarter. They just “knew the language”, exactly as this article says. Sadly, their attitude turned a number of people off physics I think.

The tone of this article is similar. The author kindly took the time to talk to the unwashed masses because he felt sorry for them, or something. But, as he said, he never learnt anything real from them, except how to communicate better with idiots.