[roywiggins]

It's a kind of Pascal's mugging, I think.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_mugging

That said, Woodward does not seem to be an actual charlatan, so I don't have a problem with funding him. At least he might turn up something fun and/or interesting, even if I don't think it's going to usher in a new space age.

[shadowgovt]

I personally believe he rides that line of charlatanism where he's not pursuing this theory in bad faith at all, but he of course recognizes that tromping around on the edge of a theoretical branch that most physicists don't think is worth exploring garners attention he wouldn't otherwise receive.

I strongly suspect that whether history remembers him as a charlatan will depend heavily on whether one of the supports of his branch proves false and it snaps off, or whether he's been right this whole time and we suddenly oops ourselves a propellantless drive that operates by coupling to the gravitational field and pushing distant objects around. ;)