The basic heuristic I use for determining what 'counts' as science relies on 3 questions<p>1) Are there methods or is there a description of how to observe something?<p>2) Are old methods being applied to a new phenomenon.<p>3) Are new methods being applied to an old phenomenon.<p>It isn't possible to do science if you don't have a viable tool (method) for measuring a phenomenon of interest or if you can't describe the phenomenon you want to study in a way that others can observe it.<p>Cases like Mochizuki with the ABC conjecture are harder, but at least the ABC conjecture is a know quantity.<p>It is reassuring that classifying papers by category of research works fairly well. Both phenomena and methodology are described using specialized vocabulary, and mismatches tend to jump out, like trying to use a hadron collider to study the blood pressure of a frog.<p>I almost like to believe that a crackpot that could masquerade as a scientist might actually discover something because they would be forced to actually engage with the concepts and tools of science.
I have found arxiv to be a dead-end when publishing without affiliation. It's impossible to get feedback on papers, let alone the necessary endorsement to submit. That leaves SSRN as the only option. Arxiv requires you to email authors for endorsements which almost never works, since it's essentially spam.
>> <i>The “insiders” can immediately tell who is an “outsider.” Often it doesn’t take more than a sentence or two, an odd expression, a term used in the wrong context, a phrase that nobody in the field would ever use.</i><p>seems a bit like when you're on top of your game with a certain programming language and feeling bored with stackoverflow questions and mailing lists asking the same old questions. Happy that in software we can easily move on to a new language / concept / idea to keep things exciting.
Arxiv banned the physicist who actually was able to build a physical model that makes sense in every aspect. Just because the reviewer did not understand one of the conclusions, the periodic table, that was a result of the theory. Of course you don't understand a result if you don't understand the theory which requires months/years to really grasp. The principle they are using only works if you stay in your paradigm, but if your paradigm is broken, you loose any real progress.<p><a href="http://archivefreedom.org/freedom/Sarg.html" rel="nofollow">http://archivefreedom.org/freedom/Sarg.html</a><p>Having spent the time to understand, I only laugh these days about the many papers I see every week that contradict our standard model :)