I don’t know anything about Steven Jones, but I became virtually certain that he’s a quack from just a few glances at the links. There’s a familiar profile to all this (9/11 conspiracy theory, cold fusion, wikipedia celeb, blogger hero).
This is the kind of urban mythology of which we will alas be seeing more and more in an age where the media have enfranchised rumor and opinion on an instant, pervasive, globalized scale. No wonder everyone wants to be a celebrity and celebrities are getting voted in as elected officials instead of people who actually have qualities:
We are headed (quite naturally) for an Opinocracy in which truth has about as much weight as it has in Wikipedia policy and chat TV, and “notability” reigns supreme…
I take OA‘s struggle for its small (peer-reviewed) niche in cyberspace to be a countervailing measure, if ever so small a one. (If the peer review abolitionists have their way — as they well might — even OA won’t help.)