The final creationism experiment

I don't know if people here were much aware of "the final experiment".
I followed what went down somewhat, and was surprised that a few flat earthers actually changed their minds.

The man behind the experiment, Will Duffy, sponsored the whole thing out of his own pocket. I can only admire him for that kind of resolve. 

I was even more surprised to learn that he was a young earth creationist pastor. And after challenging flerfs, he showed even more bravery by challenging himself on his belief in creationism.

He decided to open himself up to being convinced by YouTuber Gutsick Gibbon. Instead of going into a debate, they chose an interesting way of interacting. Erika wrote what could be seen as an extended course on evolution. Will mainly listens, and saves some criticism to the next episode.
To this date there have been three episodes, which are all pretty long.

I normally do not have the patience for videos of that length, but here I find myself fascinated by what I can learn, and the mutual respect of both parties. Will is very patient with Erika, and asks very pertinent questions. Erika is respectful of Will's ideas and thorough in her explanations.

Just finished the third installment of this series (over four hours).
Here are all three:








Could be interesting for people who get their information on evolution only from people who are professional evolution deniers.

But i am most interested to know what people think about the formula of this (non-)debate.
Is it refreshing, or do you think it is going nowhere? Take a look, if nothing else, you end up with a course on evolution understandable by an interested layman.

But i am most interested to know what people think about the formula of this (non-)debate.
Is it refreshing, or do you think it is going nowhere? Take a look, if nothing else, you end up with a course on evolution understandable by an interested layman.

I was “impressed” (being sarcastic) by how the experiment was received by the flat-earth community, despite the outcome. For example, fellow flat-earther Jeran Campanella publicly acknowledged that observing the midnight sun in Antarctica contradicts the flat-earth model after spending a day there. In contrast, Alabama pastor Dean Odle suggested that Satan had created a fireball to act as a false Sun, while others claimed the experiment itself was a conspiracy. One could argue that since the flat-earth worldview already relies heavily on conspiracy theories, extending those conspiracies to the experimental setup is a relatively small step.

I was “impressed” (being sarcastic) by how the experiment was received by the flat-earth community, despite the outcome. For example, fellow flat-earther Jeran Campanella publicly acknowledged that observing the midnight sun in Antarctica contradicts the flat-earth model after spending a day there. In contrast, Alabama pastor Dean Odle suggested that Satan had created a fireball to act as a false Sun, while others claimed the experiment itself was a conspiracy. One could argue that since the flat-earth worldview already relies heavily on conspiracy theories, extending those conspiracies to the experimental setup is a relatively small step.

For that reason, In the run up to TFE (the final experiment) i honestly thought none of the flerfs would be convinced. At best some of them would be convinced in the moment, but move the goalpost later. So i was honestly surprised TFE had the effect it had.

But i did not start this thread to talk about TFE, i am more fascinated by Will's motivation to learn about evolution. How does an obviously very intelligent person holds concepts like YEC (young earth creationism), and debunking TFE, together in the same mind? How do you compartiment your thinking that way?

If one does not want to watch four hour long videos, i understand. But if you watch the first half an hour of the first video, you might see what interests me in this project.

From the description of the first video:

192,905 views Streamed live on 4 Nov 2025
The title is the whole thing. I'm going to be administering an adapted version of the course I taught as a university instructor to Will Duffy! The course is a hybrid of general evolutionary theory and biological anthropology, and the goal is to teach Will what evolution is and why it is the foundation of modern biology.

Will Duffy is a Colorado pastor, his fame primarily coming from debunking "The Flat Earth Model" by taking several well-known flat earth content creators to Antarctica to witness the 24 hour sun.

Will is also a creationist who promised his audience he would learn about evolutionary theory to decide whether or not he finds it convincing.

This is the first "episode" of what will likely be a year-long engagement: once per month I will administer one lecture to Will using the roadmap (subject to minor changes) below:

Thanks @Sparky. Though I've not yet watched the video, I do find it interesting, not just what people believe, but why. And under what circumstances they might change their mind about something. The latter is particularly problematic. in my view, there seem in my experience to be limited windows of time in a person's life when a dramatic shift of views can occur. Depending on subject matter, some topics may not involve any attachment, while others somehow become embedded, not always beneficially. I don't consider myself outside any of this, it is part of being human I suppose.