"Crank" is a pejorative term used for a person who holds an unshakable belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false.[1] A crank belief is so wildly at variance with those commonly held that it is considered ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making any rational debate a futile task and rendering them impervious to facts, evidence, and rational inference.
Cranks overestimate their own knowledge and ability, and underestimate that of acknowledged experts.
Cranks rarely, if ever, acknowledge any error, no matter how trivial.
Cranks love to talk about their own beliefs, often in inappropriate social situations, but they tend to be bad listeners, being uninterested in anyone else's experience or opinions.
seriously misunderstand the mainstream opinion to which they believe that they are objecting,
stress that they have been working out their ideas for many decades, and claim that this fact alone entails that their belief cannot be dismissed as resting upon some simple error,
claim that their ideas are being suppressed, typically by secret intelligence organizations, mainstream science, powerful business interests, or other groups which, they allege, are terrified by the possibility of their revolutionary insights becoming widely known,
appear to regard themselves as persons of unique historical importance.
exhibit a marked lack of technical ability,
misunderstand or fail to use standard notation and terminology,
ignore fine distinctions which are essential to correctly understand mainstream belief.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crank_(pe ... cteristics
