This is not about truth or absolutes, relativity is just not relevant. It is simply that where the line between sarcastic or extremist points of view is indeterminable, they necessarily tend toward the facile and/or ridiculous - and the correct response in this case is humour.

In regards to your example, the broad assumption that they ever were regarded as such is predicated on the fact that they tend to present their findings before their research. Extreme findings, if they are facile, ridiculous, and also kind of funny, deserve derision in the absence of research to back them. Once the research is presented, the minutiae of proof of cause and effect shifts the relative position of the audience to occupy previously questionable ground.

Wow, I obviously put way too much thought into what was a just stray musing ;)

And generalities are relative to the generalist.