The other thing that happens is that those who notice something that goes against the orthodox view are dismissed out of hand. As in Alicorn's point 2, soothsayers are ignored. They often are outsiders, untrained/unconditioned by the accepted view, so their arguments are frequently inadequate.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with the abusively named "Cantor-cranks". They have noticed something fishy about Georg Cantor's 3 proofs that the real numbers are uncountable, but because Cantor did such a good job of diverting attention so completely onto t... (read more)
The other thing that happens is that those who notice something that goes against the orthodox view are dismissed out of hand. As in Alicorn's point 2, soothsayers are ignored. They often are outsiders, untrained/unconditioned by the accepted view, so their arguments are frequently inadequate.
Nowhere is this more apparent than with the abusively named "Cantor-cranks". They have noticed something fishy about Georg Cantor's 3 proofs that the real numbers are uncountable, but because Cantor did such a good job of diverting attention so completely onto t... (read more)