The ATM serves several valuable purposes, and we will never, never remove it.

1. It allows people outside the scientific mainstream to present their ideas to science-educated people. As several posters have said, you never know where the next great idea is going to come from. I've experienced this personally, and I wished there was a better community for me when I was trying to prove my ideas. We openly accept new ideas, and give people a forum to present them. It's only when people abuse this right that we need to discipline them. We must always be open-minded.

2. We try and demonstrate good techniques for challenging theories. Just because someone thinks they've got a better explanation for the beginning of the Universe, doesn't mean it's true. They need to present evidence, they need to show how their theory explains current observations, and makes predictions. They need to defend their theories properly, without losing their temper.

This teaches not only the theorists themselves, but more importantly, it shows to the hundreds of guests watching on the forum what we're doing. We don't let a claim stand without challenge.

__________________
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.