I thought you all might enjoy this example of the sort of articles and books people send us for publication at Skeptic magazine. Because we occasionally publish books (Tim Callahan's BIBLE PROPHECY and Randel Helms' WHO WROTE THE GOSPELS? so far, with Callahan's SECRET ORIGINS OF THE BIBLE next on the list), we got listed in some book publishing catalogues for would-be writers looking for a publisher. Most do not do their homework (like asking what sort of books we publish) and since it is called MILLENNIUM PRESS, people think we are a New Age publishing house, so you can only imagine the sort of manuscripts we receive. Some fit in so well for my file (now a drawer) on "THEORIES OF EVERYTHING" that I save them as examples of unadulterated "I've-written-the-greatest-book-ever about-the-most-important-theory-ever-devised...my-own-of-course."
Many deal with angels, God, Jesus, mysterious unifying forces, and the like. But most are in the realm of physics and cosmology, purporting to prove why Newton, Einstein, and Hawking are wrong, but the enclosed manuscript will present a brand new theory of physics devised over many weekends sitting in a comfortable armchair and never published anywhere before, especially peer-reviewed physics or cosmology journals, because scientists, you know, never accept radical new ideas that might overthrow the status quo, and this theory will upset everyone and everything.
Lest you think I exaggerate, today I got a query letter from a fellow in Brooklyn, NY, about his book now being written called THE GREATEST MATHEMATICIAN OF ALL TIME. Who might you guess? Euclid? Gauss? Newton? Godel? Furgetaboudit, as someone from his neck of the woods might say. The greatest mathematician of all time is the author of this book! I quote:
"I'm expressing my own point of view about math, a perhaps radical point of view, one which I believe differs in significant ways from that of the authority. I question what in math is interesting or has value and meaning and what are we trying to accomplish, what direction are we headed in. I'm also interested in the psychology, the motivations, and regard that as a part of math, itself. I regard the book as a math book and in it I maintain that, although I have only a Master's in math, I deserve a Ph.D., largely based on the merits of the book, which I look upon as my doctoral thesis. I give an argument as to why I should have a Ph.D., and why, in fact, I may even be a reasonable candidate for the greatest mathematician of all time, from some point of view."
"Some point of view" says it all. Who's point of view might that be?!
On the final page of his query letter he notes that he checked out of his local library John Casti's book FIVE GOLDEN RULES. "It's about 20th century math and I might criticize some of the ideas or theories, namely Game Theory a nd Godel's Theorem."
Now, theoretically it is possible that this gentleman really is the greatest mathematician of all time (although I'm not sure who keeps track of these things--maybe the American Mathematical Association publishes that ranking every year), but if probability theory has any validity I would estimate the likelihood of this statement being true as about as probable as encountering a particle of matter in the vacuum of space, or the probability of the Boston Red Sox winning a world series (unless the Bambino can be reincarnated).
I do not mean to imply that outsiders cannot make important contributions to science. They can and have. But in order to think outside the box one first must know what is in the box (it's called graduate school), one must convince those in the box that the box needs reinventing (it's called marketing your ideas), and, of course, one must be right (it's called research). Far from scientists being unaccepting of radical new ideas, any scientist worth his salt would love to witness or be part of a scientific revolution. But science is conservative. It cannot afford not to be. It makes rigid demands on its participants in order to weed out all the bad ideas from the handful of good ideas. I recently downloaded off the net the list of publication requirements from the journal SCIENCE, one of the two most prestigious scientific journals in the world (the other being NATURE ... oh, and SKEPTIC, of course :). Basically it asks you if this is the most important paper you have ever written, based on the most rigid and controlled research you have ever conducted, the results of which have been leaked to no one outside of your lab rats or spouse. If the answer to these questions is yes, you might possibly consider submitting your paper but only if you are fully prepared to have it rejected knowing that the reviewers are laughing hysterically that you would even think your work is worthy.
Despite this conservatism scientific revolutions do happen, and not all that infrequently. But for every lone genius working away in solitude that shifted the paradigm, shattered the pedestal, or smashed the status quo, ten thousand quacks working away in solitude didn't understand the paradigm, couldn't find the pedestal, or whiffed when swinging at the status quo.