I remember the same folks not being interested back then...

This argument is known as pascal's wager http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager. It is the same argument that has gotten congress to fund perpetual motion/free energy machines for a few decades now http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Energy_Machines. And is well covered in the book Voodoo Science by Robert Park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voodoo_Science