[renormalised (Carl)]

The problem is that many kids are leaving school without being taught how to think critically, to think logically and with any discipline at all. Or they just forget about it when they leave school. When they become adults, this carries on over and then when something turns up that is obviously a con, many get sucked into it because they can't see it. They don't have the background to filter out the good from the bad. This happens even to supposedly well educated people as well. But it all really depends on those skills they learn or don't learn as children. It's wonderful to be able to think outside the box, have that intuition and imagination, but it also has to be tempered by discipline and logic when needed. Only then can it be put to the best use.

And, as Bert has said, this is not a laughing matter. If we allowed any old thing to be considered as factual and have currency, without first checking that it stood up to all the criteria for being considered worthwhile, we'd be in up to our necks in all sorts of nonsense. Yes, there are some things our science and technology can't, as yet, prove or disprove, but we can certainly give well reasoned and educated guesses at what might be the case. But when things begin to devolve into sheer speculation, confabulation, fantasy or anything else which can lead to confusion then we become lost. Sometimes, there need to be limits put on things. Not because we may overstep some predetermined limit to knowledge, but to make sure we're heading in the right direction and don't get too sidetracked. Sometimes the best path to a destination is not always by the shortcut. It may save you time and effort, but it might also lead you away from the destination and get you into places where you shouldn't be. The ones that do navigate the shortcuts well are very few and far between. They're usually the Einsteins, Faraday's, Hawking's, Witten's and the like. Most of us will never be like them, nor should we be.