In general people should have at the least vague "red flag limits" of what's reasonable in a field.

Let's use a hypothetical example: if I were to proclaim that I've found an overunity machine, most of the comments would (rightly) criticize and/or lecture me on how that's not possible without rewriting most of physics. The silurian hypothesis doesn't evoke nearly the same reaction, even accounting for the evidentiary strength difference between archaeology and physics.

We can discuss why that is and so on, but most people just aren't equipped to differentiate crackpots from legitimate sources.