Renaisauce, your advice to those afflicted with this syndrome is excellent. As soon as people start taking criticism as personal or viewing science as us vs. them--such as using terms like "the Einstein camp" or "defenders of the status quo"--they have lost the main point of the exercise, which is to refine our understanding of natural phenomena.

The saddest recent example for me was trying to tell a particular poster that the reason for his work's multiple rejections seemed to be that he was failing to communicate. He needed to make a better case that its main points were both correct and made a contribution to the understanding of relativity and gravity. Instead of railing against those who challenged his ideas and editors who had rejected his work, he needed to use their reactions to refine it.

I even told him in some detail what points I was not "getting" as a suggestion for specific areas of revision or clarification.

Unfortunately, he viewed my comments, which I intended as helpful, to be a personal attack. He left a final message of ridicule, and, as far as I know, has not yet attempted a revision.

I hope he sees the absurdity of his responses to me and his other critics in your post.

Fred Bortz -- Science and technology books for young readers (www.fredbortz.com) and Science book reviews (www.scienceshelf.com)