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Comment by thelibrarian | Hacker News Reader

There's at least one fairly well-know biology professor/blogger who is unimpressed with what he dubs the "MFAP" hypothesis:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/07/02/the-mfap-h...

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The thing I find most depressing about these crackpots is that some otherwise productive scientist has to spend an evening debunking their nonsense. And it still doesn't stop.

I taught evolution for undergrads, and occasionally had to deal with these issues from students. It takes time to look into them, and no matter how thoroughly debunked the theory, some kids find them too irresistible to let go of. It undermines real education in the end.

What often distinguishes the crackpot from the visionary is whether they are eventually vindicated. The latter usually begins their career being perceived as the former.

This is a tautology. Of course visionaries are the ones who were vindicated.

That doesn't mean that being perceived as a crackpot is a reliable indicator of being a visionary. It's similar to the argument that opposition equals confirmation -- some religious groups and conspiracy theorists argue that the fact that people oppose them means they are right.

I never said crackpots are guaranteed to be visionaries, though I'm sure it made a convenient strawman for you to argue against. My only point was that you can't be certain either way a priori, to be sure you must actually investigate it (and history tells us even then that's not always going to guarantee certainty).

The depth of investigation should be proportional to the probability of correctness, weighted by the cost of being wrong. Crackpots are called such because the probability of correctness is very low.

Given all the evidence, I consider the MFAP origin hypothesis to be significantly less likely than the primate evolution theory. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

to play devil's advocate: consider the extreme absurdity of einstein's theory of relativity, the theory that time may speed up or slow down depending on your velocity.

But who called Einstein a crackpot at the time?

He had a lot of weight behind his claims.

That wasn't a strawman at all. The GP said visionaries are subset of crackpots and Prob(crackpot) >> Prob(visionary).

I rather like this quote attributed to Carl Sagan:

"They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

If it's really crackpot then it should be easy to point out a clear flaw without taking much time.

> some kids find them too irresistible to let go of. It undermines real education in the end.

Teaching is not my cup of tea but isn't an important life lesson teaching kids how to smell bullshit? If they can do that, surely they will know what books to pick and what to learn.

Agree. Debunking this sort of thing would be a fabulous way of describing all manner of genetic principles, particularly the structure of chromosomes, recombination hotspots and haplotypes.

True, to a point. Debunking one of these in a class is a good exercise. Preparing a lesson takes time, though, especially when you have to respond to something out of the blue. You could easily get caught spending all your limited spare time discussing why these theories aren't science, instead of the ones that are. Evolution is a big topic, and I'd rather spend my limited time dealing with the substantive bits.

Call me unimpressed by the "proof by eminent authority", in particular when said authority offers only a "proof by public ridicule".

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