CRANKS AND CULTS



Liberal friendly quotes:

"A crank, in [Martin] Gardner's definition, is someone who challenges scientific orthodoxy -- but not in a sensible, well-informed way. Instead, he is an outsider who fails to understand what the orthodoxy is about, and/or is determined to refute the current wisdom for personal or political rather than scientific reasons… Gardner identifies two defining features of a crank. 'He does not send his findings to the recognized journals… He speaks before organizations he himself has founded, contributes to journals he himself may edit…' The other characteristic of a crank… is the belief that failure of the establishment to accept his ideas necessarily represents stupidity, dishonesty or both."
-- Paul Krugman, Peddling Prosperity

"Despite its centrality to political debate, economic research is a very low-budget affair. The entire annual economics budget at the National Science foundation is less than $20 million. What this means is that even a handful of wealthy cranks can support an impressive-looking array of think tanks, research institutes, foundations, and so on devoted to promoting an economic doctrine they like. (The role of a few key funders, like the Coors and Olin foundations, in building an intellectual facade for late 20th-century conservatism is a story that somebody needs to write.) The economists these institutions can attract are not exactly the best and the brightest. Supply-side troubadour Jude Wanniski has lately been reduced to employing followers of Lyndon LaRouche. But who needs brilliant, or even competent, researchers when you already know all the answers?"
-- Paul Krugman, Slate

"There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible and wrong."
-- H.L. Mencken

"…there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend… Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'"
-- Nathanial Branden, in a review of "Therapist" by Ellen Plasil

"'Libertarian UberMensch smites devolved, parasitic, running-dog, statist lackies that want our women!' Atlas Shrugged in a nutshell."
-- Mike Huben

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