http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000547F6-C50D-1CC6-B4A8809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=1&catID=2

"A second characteristic of the pseudo-scientist, which greatly strengthens his isolation, is a tendency toward paranoia," which manifests itself in several ways:

(1) He considers himself a genius. (2) He regards his colleagues, without exception, as ignorant blockheads.... (3) He believes himself unjustly persecuted and discriminated against. The recognized societies refuse to let him lecture. The journals reject his papers and either ignore his books or assign them to "enemies" for review. It is all part of a dastardly plot. It never occurs to the crank that this opposition may be due to error in his work.... (4) He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest scientists and the best-established theories. When Newton was the outstanding name in physics, eccentric works in that science were violently anti-Newton. Today, with Einstein the father-symbol of authority, a crank theory of physics is likely to attack Einstein.... (5) He often has a tendency to write in a complex jargon, in many cases making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined.

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