Crackpot index: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:53, 4 December 2008

Revision as of 09:25, 24 January 2009

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The '''crackpot index''' is a number that rates scientific claims or the individuals that make them, in conjunction with a method for computing that number. The method, proposed (most likely as a joke){{orOr|date=November 2008}} by mathematical physicist [[John Baez]] in 1992, computes an index by responses to a list of 37 questions, each positive response contributing a point value ranging from 1 to 50. The computation is initialized with a value of −5.

Presumably any positive value of the index indicates crankiness.