That's a pretty fun index. If you removed the bias of accepting the current cosmological model as consensus and read it like it was submitted by a grad student how many points would the dark matter & dark energy model accrue? Is it logically consistent to propose a model that requires such a large adjustment by the inclusion of variables that have never been experimentally proven to exist? Does this model rest on the laurels and works of Albert Einstein? "10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it." Do dark matter and dark energy not qualify here?
IANAP (physicist) but using this index it's hard not to imagine another place in the multiverse where this dark energy/matter cosmological model receives a high score on this rubric.
Well, the Crackpot Index is obviously tongue in cheek, but also born out of frustration, I think. It must get tiresome for scientists to listen to cranks trying to "disprove" established science with bizarre theories and a complete disregard for the literature. You can address one, two, three of these people, but it soon becomes a bother and you're tempted to write the Index instead.
I agree it's probably very difficult to tell really novel and paradigm-shifting theories from the ramblings of cranks.
I suppose the Dark Matter model scores highly in some items of the Crackpot Index but very low in "the government is trying to suppress this", "everything they told you is a lie", and also the scientists who proposed it understood the established science and didn't randomly disregard it. I think the "conspiracy" aspect is what sets a crackpot apart.
Again, it's possible that a person is a crackpot AND he/she is also right about a particular theory!
IANAP (physicist) but using this index it's hard not to imagine another place in the multiverse where this dark energy/matter cosmological model receives a high score on this rubric.