Decrypting God's Language, and Other Items from Professors' Crackpot Files

Autor/in	Monastersky, Richard
Titel	Decrypting God's Language, and Other Items from Professors' Crackpot Files
Quelle	In: Chronicle of Higher Education, 54 (2008) 49, (1 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0009-5982
Schlagwörter	Discussion Groups; Climate; Internet; College Faculty; Persuasive Discourse; Letters (Correspondence); Theories + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Klima; Fakultät; Persuasion; Persuasive Kommunikation; Brief; Theory; Theorie
Abstract	This article describes how professors became magnets for crackpots bearing pet theories and searching for validation. Scott A. Hughes, an associate professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received a 22-page, single-spaced screed this May just begging for a place in the crackpot file. The subject line read, in part, "God's language is CRYPTOGRAPHY which reveals that Global Warming is the end of the world." That message also went to 33 other physicists at MIT, Harvard, and Princeton. Mr. Hughes is in good company when it comes to attracting attention from would-be geniuses. According to researchers, fields as diverse as archaeology, literature, and mathematics each nurture a different type of crank. Most often, the obsessed attention seekers are harmless, even when they accost professors at meetings or wander the halls of a department looking for an open door. Some reach beyond private inquiries to post bile-filled messages about a scholar's work on Internet discussion groups. And one professor who studied cranks was even sued by an irate correspondent, who later came knocking on his front door. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10