Part of the problem is that it's much easier to come up with a new perpetual motion machine or reactionless drive concept than to prove that it doesn't work. After seeing them all fail, at a certain point people are going to stop paying them any attention. Oh, this time it uses X force in Y configuration? Go away until you have data, we could be more profitably spending time on just about anything else.
It's only difficult because typically it involves a claimed effect right at the limits of what's measurable. A real effect wouldn't have to be barely perceptible, would it?
The person who discovered nitroglycerine didn't somehow find the amount they could make to be right on the edge of detection.
> Part of the problem is that it's much easier to come up with a new perpetual motion machine or reactionless drive concept than to prove that it doesn't work.
