when it comes to obscurity you need to refer to groups that moniter it the scientific community depends on skeptical organizations to do that work in my work as an astronomer i get reams of letters describing crackpot idea after crackpot idea i don't have time to respond to each and every one of them there are only a few people that spend time dealing with such issues phil plait is one of them ned wright is another but theirs is a hobby not a full time endeavor the fact is that most people in astronomy or cosmology who have heard about these ideas dismiss them out of hand the few that do criticize them do so rather handily often without looking back even though the against the mainstreamers continue to retort and comeback with crazier and more shrill ideas even the plasma cosmology proponents get in on the act eric lerner has literally shouted down people at conferences scientists have better things to publish than criticism of halton arp's work so that's where we stand the references are by ommission and by way of obscure attacks in the literature we report all crackpot ideas in wikipedia but fairness dictates that we call them what they are