There may not be a more prominent flat-Earther than Boston Celtics guard Kyrie Irving. While Irving has sometimes made it sound like he’s just trying to be provocative and challenge the scientific consensus about the shape of the Earth, the amount of information basketball fans have to suggest that Irving honestly believes this is a bit overwhelming.
But in an interview that dropped during Game 4 of the 2018 NBA Finals, Irving told Sopan Deb of the New York Times that this is “fun for me.”
“It’s mentally stimulating to hear because there absolutely are scientists or engineers that have said, ‘Hey man, I believe the Earth is flat,'” Irving said. “But then of course, utilizing an exploitation tactic of utilizing my name and who I am, and all of a sudden it turns into a bigger thing. Which is fine. That’s the way our society works. It is what it is. I don’t mind it.”
If you’re confused by that, well, that’s understandable. Irving’s responses to Deb were really, really out there. Take, for instance, this exchange.
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/1005260895382069248
Irving also claimed that this was part of an attempt to challenge the education system with the hopes of leading the youth to make their own conclusions on matters of science, I think?
Are you aware of [a middle school teacher struggling to convince their students the earth is round because of him]? If so, that would be, in theory, a concrete example of where those words might matter, right?
Oh yeah, no, and I absolutely agree, which is why research and why history has shown that even having opposing sides — I mean, history has shown even back then, our biggest scholars did think the Earth was flat. It didn’t just spark out of anywhere and then everyone just goes into their own groups. Definitely different scientists have come along and proved the law of gravity. Everything that science breeds, and you have specific scientists that are giving all this information. I wanted to open up the conversation, like, “Hey man, do your own research for what you want to believe in.” Our educational system is flawed. History has been changed throughout so much time. I literally got that from what they did to Nikola Tesla of what he was trying to do for just an incredible world. I could just go on and on about this stuff, man.
So listen, I like Kyrie Irving the basketball player a lot. He also seems like a pretty nice guy! But this is starting to get really weird, right? Like, his point seems to be that students (and people in general) should challenge the scientific consensus because, uh, older scientists challenged it, and despite the fact that they were wrong, the most important thing was that they were challenging these things.
This doesn’t seem to be as much of an exercise in free though as much as it is telling people to challenge indisputable facts, which is dangerous. But it’s 2018, we’re way through the looking glass, and the best approach to everything is nihilism, anyway, so let’s just agree that 2+2=5 and continue to fly around the star at the center of the solar system on this rock suspended in the midst of outer space.
(Via New York Times)
