I find that blog post characteristic of what's wrong with academia. Lisi's obviously not a nutjob, and obviously not an idiot, and he's treated with contempt for proposing a big idea that might be wrong; might even be spectacularly wrong. Academia as a whole would usually rather see people get back in line and go on solving irrelevant problems. I found it encouraging that in the originally linked article that he at least did find some people in the scientific community that would treat him with a modicum of respect even if it was just in taking the time to explain why his theory doesn't fit the bill.
Sure, but boring and correct isn't a whole lot more interesting, and academia seems to produce a seemingly endless stream of such in my field of expertise. Many of the breakthroughs would have seemed naïve prior to having become dominant. Incidentally, some of my most productive research while in college was sparked by reading a paper that was patently wrong, but off-kilter enough to get me to look into some previously unexplored corners for new models.
