Being a scientist vs. being heard by other scientists. I wonder how the surfer dude with his E8 based Theory of everything does in that regards?
The way current scientists inter act is error prone - but it gets some results. And eventually ideas get heard. For every Wegener there are thousands of Homeopaths, Snake Oilers and physics cranks that spread noise.
The surfer dude, Garrett Lisi, has an institutional affiliation, Lee Smolin's Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Basically the people trying to save physics from string theory. His arXiv post wasn't ignored and wasn't something that came from outside the high energy physics subculture, if that's what you mean. Paper on arXiv, discussion in the HEP blogs, vitriolic abuse from Lubos Motl, nothing unusual. That appears to be (from what I can tell as an outsider) how ideas are floated and initially looked over by peers in the HEP field.
The E8 theory ...
Please have a look at this Youtube user account. I immediately thought of this site upon watching a couple of his clips. I am told we have tried here to publish some stuff in audiovisual fomat, but it didn't quite work out. Maybe we should contact this guy, perhaps we could profit from each other's work and experience? I am fairly hopeful that he could use some of the material here, and we could use some of his talent with the medium.
This video, for instance, looks like it was taken right out of this very blog