O texto abaixo do Martin Gardner(Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Dover) foi escrito pensando em cientistas. Leiter acha que com algumas modificações é uma descrição apropriada de alguns filosofos. Diria que cai como uma luva pra descrever alguns membros da comunidade dos economistas e, principalmente, os que não são membros, mas se comportam como se fossem...
[Some cranks] are brilliant and well-educated, often with an excellent understanding of the branch of science in which they are speculating. Their books can be highly deceptive imitations of the genuine article — well-written and impressively learned....[C]ranks work in almost total isolation from their colleagues. Not isolation in the geographical sense, but in the sense of having no fruitful contacts with fellow researchers.... The modern pseudo-scientist... stands entirely outside the closely integrated channels through which new ideas are introduced and evaluated. He works in isolation. He does not send his findings to the recognized journals, or if he does, they are rejected for reasons which in the vast majority of cases are excellent. In most cases the crank is not well enough informed to write a paper with even a surface resemblance to a significant study. As a consequence, he finds himself excluded from the journals and societies, and almost universally ignored by competent workers in the field..... The eccentric is forced, therefore, to tread a lonely way. He speaks before organizations he himself has founded, contributes to journals he himself may edit, and — until recently — publishes books only when he or his followers can raise sufficient funds to have them printed privately.
And here are Gardner's criteria for "crankhood":
He considers himself a genius.
He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads. Everyone is out of step except himself....
He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against....
He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. When Newton was the outstanding name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein in the name of Newton....
He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined...
Fonte: Leiter
