I refuse to watch this new Netflix documentary, Behind the Curve, because even if it is ripping ruthlessly into those idjits, it’s giving them more attention than they deserve. They’re also intellectually dishonest.
One of those Flat Earthers is Bob Knodel, who hosts a YouTube channel entirely dedicated to the theory and who is one of the team relying on a $20,000 laser gyroscope to prove the Earth doesn’t actually rotate.
Except… It does.
“What we found is, when we turned on that gyroscope, we found that we were picking up a drift,” Knodel explains. “A 15-degree per hour drift.
“Now, obviously we were taken aback by that – ‘Wow, that’s kind of a problem.’
“We obviously were not willing to accept that, and so we started looking for easy to disprove it was actually registering the motion of the Earth.”
You know what they say: If your experiment proves you wrong, just disregard the results!
“We don’t want to blow this, you know?” Knodel then says to another Flat Earther. “When you’ve got $20,000 in this freaking gyro.
“If we dumped what we found right now, it would be bad? It would be bad.
“What I just told you was confidential.”
Wow. They spent $20,000 on an instrument that they then chose to ignore. As one of those small college scientists who is trying to patch together gear on little bitty $400, $600 grants, and who bought a microscope camera for $2000 out of his own pocket, I’m more than a little appalled. Next time someone decides to drop a chunk of money on some crackpot, could they just send it to me, instead? I’ll use it responsibly.
If nothing else, that kind of money would fund summer research projects for at least six students, and would help produce competent scientists for the future.