Sound familiar?

Read this on Wikipedia today. Insert "Ron Paul supporters" for cold fusion, and "MSM" or "Republicans" for the other party:

"Between [cold fusion] and respectable science there is virtually no communication at all. Cold fusion papers are almost never published in refereed scientific journals, with the result that those works don't receive the normal critical scrutiny that science requires. On the other hand, because the Cold-Fusioners see themselves as a community under siege, there is little internal criticism. Experiments and theories tend to be accepted at face value, for fear of providing even more fuel for external critics, if anyone outside the group was bothering to listen. In these circumstances, crackpots flourish, making matters worse for those who believe that there is serious science going on here"

Moral of the story: Dont' be afraid to criticize each other. When someone makes a post, don't just challenge it, build off it. And when you make a post, expect others to challenge it and build off it. Only through such openness will we separate the solid ideas from the crackpot ideas, and be able to influence others (since we will have discarded the "crackpots" long ago, we can present our most solid ideas).