This may seem like "just a laugh entertainment", but it's of a piece with demagogues & their acolytes spewing far more corrosive lies, demonising experts as "tools of the elite", & all enabled by media seeking false balance. Call me melodramatic, but civilisations end this way.
Yes, I know I tweeted this clip earlier already, but it makes me very angry. He's been given a prime time TV platform to talk utter bollocks, with zero qualifications, zero evidence, just his "theories", & presented as equally credible to the PhD cosmologist. 2/
It is an illustration of how detached some people are from reality, unfettered by the slightest need to justify their idiotic nonsense. But it's a far more damning indictment of media that entertains this rubbish, as if all "opinions" about the Universe are equally valid. 3/
Again, I'm sure they justify it in this case as just "entertainment", but this opens deeply dangerous doors to a more general "he said, she said" culture where it's held reasonable to doubt the scientific method that concretely describes the physical world in which we live. 4/
And beyond that, it allows those with dark political & social agendas to cast doubt on the the words of experts, to exploit lies to their own ends, & ultimately to destroy the rational, evidence-based decision-making processes that our technological society deeply depends on. 5/
Many will shrug their shoulders & say "oh, get over yourself; it's just a bit of fun". But history teaches us that it's not: it's the "harmless" stuff that normalises the far more dangerous, & that way disaster lies. Always. Take a good look at yourselves, @thismorning. 6/6
Coda: @KeithKahnHarris gives a much deeper insight into exactly the same topic.
