Shutting down flat Earthers, Neil deGrasse Tyson style | Big Think

[Music] I don't like debating people because in a debate what is the construct? It's typically two people, and there's an audience, and you debate some opposite sides of some issue. Then there's a winner of the debate, and then everyone walks away reflecting on the winner. So who wins a debate? It's often the person who's charismatic, who may be charming—that's related to charisma, of course—who has a good way with words, good vocabulary.

You can have someone who doesn't have any of that, who is speaking objective truths, who could lose a debate. So then, what is the point of the debate if one of these points of view is objectively true? I will not enter a debate where I have the objectively true side of an argument and the other person does not. That is something that should not be debated; it does not belong in front of an audience getting debated.

You want to debate something? Debate political policy of what to do in the face of climate change. Do you have carbon tax? Do you have the solar panels? Do you subsidize them? Debate that! Don't debate something that is or is not objectively true in this world.

The B.o.B, the rapper—I have a video letter to him, the transcript of which is in Letters from an Astrophysicist. That rose to that level of attention because he started saying, "I am using laws of math and physics to show Earth is flat." Those are fightin' words! You can say using math and physics, that is an alarm to the geek-averse that we must rise up and counteract these forces from the dark side that are out there.

So the bat-signal went up. I responded. What is the bat-signal? Oh, sorry. In my Twitter stream, there were people saying, "Neil, you got to do something about B.o.B. Save him from himself! He's saying Earth is flat." Then I first said, "Who's B.o.B?" So I quickly looked at my toes ever after.

Okay, these are people who follow me and B.o.B in the Twitterverse. So what does that Venn diagram look like, huh? How much overlap is there in the two Venn diagrams? This in this slice, however narrow they were pleading to me to do something. And so I responded with a video letter just kind of putting him in his place.

I think it's important to combat people who are claiming that they are using math, science, evidence, and physics behind their cause when, in fact, they either aren't or are using it badly. That needs to be called out. Otherwise, if you just have a belief system, I don't really care.

We live in a country that protects free speech, which usually also means free thought. If you want to think Earth is flat, go right ahead. But if you start influencing other people who have power over other people, and you have no foundation in objective reality, it can be dangerous. If you influence people or you yourself become someone who has influence over legislation, laws, rules by which we all abide in society, that's an unhealthy situation for civilization to be in.

If your personal belief system, which does not have correspondence in objective reality, starts becoming predominant in the thoughts and hearts and minds of civilization. [Music]