Cranks, while sometimes creepy, are what makes the world go 'round. Really, what fun is life and the philosophies it spawns without some highly weird people to go against the grain by promoting bizarre theories? Would religions be interesting without hermits, stylites, and heretics? Would science be interesting without phrenology or the notion of the Hollow Earth? For every "legitimate" discovery man makes, we make a dozen others that might prove delusional, unsubstantiated, or simply too weird for society to accept, and it's those ideas that make life really fascinating. Not to denigrate the advancements that have created everyday life as we know it, but let's be honest, even particle physics doesn't seem as appealing as a quiet guy who spends a decade working on a 2000-page dissertation about the secret life of angels, complete with footnotes dictated by heavenly powers.

Yeah, cranks- who, to be fair, may actually know what's going on, but just don't have any number of certain factors behind them- are the intriguing soul of the intellectual world.