[adw]

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html to thread! Falls foul of - at least - points 16, 18 and 24. (Could anyone find any falsifiable predictions, for that matter?)

On a more serious note, the quality of scientific debate on Hacker News is really, really low. Part of it is this community's insistence on contrariness – which comes out in a bunch of weird ways, global warming denialism probably the most prominent – but part of it is a really unattractive arrogant streak which refuses to accept that some issues are just complex. Kind of a Dunning-Kruger effect, really.

(I have no solutions, but it's worth noting).

[kens]

Yes debate quality seems to have dropped. A few years ago HN comments would put a scientific article in perspective and add important insights. Now there are tons of comments with questions at a Physics 101 or Bio 101 or Astro 101 level.

(At least that's how it appears to me.)

[Florin_Andrei]

This forum is growing. The discussion quality is bound to decrease. It's mathematically mandatory.

Happened to every online community I've seen in the last decade.

[juiceandjuice]

While I mostly agree about the contrarian nature of many HN posters, there are more than a few very qualified scientists on HN from varied backgrounds, probably at a higher percentage than any other general online community that I can think of.