Why are most cranks old men?

Question

What To Do When The Trisector Comes claims that most cranks (for lack of a better word) are old men (trisector refers to a specific type of crank):

One obvious characteristic of trisectors is that they are old. The typical trisector heard of the trisection in his geometry class, but did not succeed with his construction until many years later, usually after retirement. "His" in the last sentence is not sexist because almost all trisectors are male. From the two female trisectors I know of, it follows by an invalid statistical calculation that we can be 95% sure that the proportion of female trisectors is less than .04. Women have too much sense to waste time on such things. Trisectors are old men.

(Can't tell if "invalid statistical calculation" is a typo in the source)

I'm looking for:

1. A more detailed explanation for why cranks tend to be male (more detailed than "Women have too much sense to waste time on such things"). References would be even better.
2. An explanation for why cranks tend to be old.

Answer 1

In order to assess this claim, it is important to first bear in mind that classification as a “crank” theory actually requires a reasonably high level of technical development. For example, in the linked article on trisection of an angle, it actually takes quite a bit of skill and work even to come up with a plausible-sounding false theory of how to do it. There are almost certainly millions of adolescents in geometry classes around the world who would think that you can trisect an angle using straightedge and compass, and are willing to give it a go. You would probably find thousands who think they have figured out how to do it. The reason we don't class these kids as “cranks” is not because they are any smarter than the “cranks”, but just because they lack the time and technical skill to put forward a plausible-looking method, backed up by technical argumentation. Even if they did, you wouldn’t tend to call an adolescent a “crank”, since the expectation of knowledge is lower.

Secondly, one should consider the likely preconditions for spending a large amount of time trying to prove something that professionals in the discipline assert to be false. This will generally occur only if: (1) the person is of the view that these authority figures are fallible, and there is some reasonable prospect of success; or (2) the person gets direct enjoyment from the challenge, regardless of its impossibility. Therefore, a “crank” is more likely to emerge among people who are either sceptical of institutional and professional authorities, or among people who get direct enjoyment from playing with technical problems. Having then found a “solution” that appears plausible to them, what are they supposed to do? Keep it to themselves?

Thus, assuming that your hypothesis is true (i.e., that most “cranks” are indeed older men), I would posit that the most likely explanations are probably a combination of the following factors:

1. There are far more men than women in technical professions that give them the requisite skill to develop a “crank” argument (ergo more men than women);

2. There is strong evidence that men score lower than women on the personality trait of “agreeableness”, and they are also much more interested in things in the people–things dichotomy. There is some psychological evidence that men are more sceptical/resistant to institutional authority. They are therefore much more likely to satisfy the preconditions for gaining utility from working on a problem that is asserted to be impossible by professional authorities (ergo more men than women);

3. In order to develop a theory in sufficient technical detail to be considered a “crank”, one needs a substantial amount of technical training, e.g., in engineering, mathematics, physics, etc., and there are more men and older people with this technical training (ergo more men and more older people);

4. In order to develop a theory in sufficient technical detail to be considered a “crank”, one needs a substantial amount of time, such as would be available in retirement (ergo more older people). Moreover, professionals who are able to work on these problems during their primary career (e.g., academics and other professional researchers) are less likely to pursue these types of theories due to their professional training and institutional feedback from peer review, so the main class of people that might have the time to develop a crank theory prior to retirement (when they are younger) are unlikely to do so (ergo more older people);

5. Even under equivalent circumstances, an older person is more likely to be classified as a “crank” than a younger person, due to the fact that certain younger people (particularly children, adolescents, and young adults) are not expected to have a high level of technical knowledge, and are generally excused for making assertions that are belied by expert knowledge (ergo more older people);

6. The context for discussion of “cranks” often tends to be technical disciplines like mathematics, engineering, physics, etc., which are heavily dominated by men. There are many other fields of interest dominated by women, where silly ideas are ubiquitous, but these tend not to be raised as examples of “cranks” in these kinds of technical discussions. For example, for every male “crank” in the field of mathematics, there are probably a hundred woman who believe in crystal healing or tarot cards, or some other scientifically baseless idea in a field that is more popular with women (ergo more men than women);

Incidentally, these are exactly the same reasons why the vast majority of correct technical methods in the fields of mathematics, engineering, physics, etc., are developed by men, with a reasonable representation of older men – for every few “cranks” that put forward asserted proofs of false theories, we get an innovator who breaks new ground with a correct theory that extends existing knowledge. In any case, these are just hypotheses, but they seem pretty plausible to me, and I am not aware of any literature that attempts to study this problem. Personally, I find it unlikely that a gender imbalance is due to women “having too much sense”. Both sexes can lay claim to a great many people with very little good sense, and in my observation, various women spend absurdly large amounts of time on activities that are no less ill-advised than trying to prove/disprove difficult/impossible technical theories.

Answer 2

Interesting that all of the responses so far seem to be from men. I believe that the extreme gender-skew among math and physics cranks is the flip side of the cult of genius, which is deeply entrenched in mathematics and theoretical physics, and also heavily gendered.

"Genius" in the sense of having brilliant insights into an abstruse field is almost exclusively conceptualized as male. As a result, men are far more likely to imagine themselves as possessing undiscovered or unappreciated brilliance. This delusion either intensifies with age or retirement provides more opportunities for indulging it.

Answer 3

"Old men" have a lot of accumulated knowledge and experience, and have usually developed a lot of wisdom.

We can often look at a situation, immediately know what superficial details to ignore, and then quickly assemble and analyze the fundamentals.

Unfortunately, we sometimes look at situations outside of our expertise, where our knowledge is less than it should be, and then we develop amazing answers that are totally wrong.

I myself learned about trisection from my grade 10 teacher, who had the patience to read my proof and point out that "draw a line connecting points A, B, and C" made an unwarranted assumption.

I later learned that when a soft-science expert says something is impossible, it really means that it goes against all common knowledge and reasoning, but when a mathematician says something is impossible, it really does mean that it is impossible.

Those that grew up in non-mathematical fields tend not to be aware of this distinction, and so see impossible as a challenge, not as an absolute fact.

(E.g. it used to be impossible to transmit a signal of much more than 5 kHz over twisted pair telephone wires.)

For the sexist part of the question, all I can suggest is that males tend to be more aggressive, challenging the status quo, and women tend to be more conciliatory, working for compromise. E.g. an "old man" would say that trisection is possible, and here's why, while an "old woman" would say, if she said anything at all, that trisection might be possible, and here's why.

Answer 4

Old men in general don't work anymore, which means

• They have plenty of time on their hands.

• They don't have employers/ bosses/clients/subordinates anymore for which they have to behave (normally)

Answer 5

Perhaps there is something psychometrics can tell here. I suggest it here as a possible perspective into the question.

This wikipedia article claims:

Previous research has found evidence that most adults become more agreeable, conscientious, and less neurotic as they age.

with this reference.

And it further claims

For example, women consistently report higher Neuroticism, Agreeableness, warmth (an extraversion facet) and openness to feelings, and men often report higher assertiveness (a facet of extraversion) and openness to ideas as assessed by the NEO-PI-R.

with this reference.