Sir Sic (the Social Inequality Crusader) mocks a “college professor” who claims to have a mechanical engineering degree and who claims that rockets cannot work in a vacuum. Because he not only doesn’t understand basic science, he thinks it’s all a conspiracy.

The original video seems to date from quite some time ago; the version I found was uploaded to YouTube in 2017, and was apparently in existence some time prior to that. Unfortunately, no information is given about who this guy is, and whether he’s *actually* a college professor. Given the accent, he’s clearly not a westerner… which is a relief. There are already quite enough shrieking morons in American academia. And while I’m appalled at anyone claiming to be an engineer talking uneducated and factually wrong smack about science, it’s much less offensive to me if they are from a competing or even adversarial land. However, since he’s speaking *English,* it’s not impossible that he’s an enemy agent come to the US in order to dumb down American college students.

Another possibility is that he not only knows he’s full of BS, he’s actually trolling. Perhaps his purpose is to confuse the kiddies, and then get them to correct him. Teach them critical thinking and skepticism. Teach them to not trust The Man, but instead to apply the lessons of science and arrive at the facts. However, “he’s a moron” is a hell of a lot simpler explanation.

The difficulty with this guys world view is that he lives in a world where rockets exist in space and perform just fine. Of course the conspiracy theorist would argue that that’s all just a scam; there are no space rockets. But then the counter to *that* is “go outside at night and look up. You’ll see satellites.” And doubtless there are terribly clever and fundamentally stupid counters to *that.* Robert Goddard encountered just this sort of dumbassery more than a century ago when the New York Times mocked him for claiming that rockets would work in a vacuum. Not only did he have the math behind him, he actually demonstrated it. On ground level, by firing a rocket in a vacuum “track.” Nothing stopping people from replicating this today. A long length of plexiglas or polycarbonate clear pipe, with a model rocket motor at one end, pumped down to very low pressure, then fire off the rocket and watch it zip down the tube. Do that a couple times, both with vacuum and with air pressure. It’s a safe bet the rockets in vacuum will move faster.

This “professor” is an exemplar of “other ways of knowing.” I fully support his ambitions… for other countries.