[twstws]

This bothers me as a former professor, because these fringe ideas undermine teaching and waste time. Imagine trying to present a lesson on evolution, and one of your students brings this up. You spend a few minutes discussing it. Of course, you've never heard of it before, because it's beyond implausible. So you spend your evening looking into it, and the holes in the theory. Next class you spend more time discussing it. If you're good, the student understands and you move on. If not the student leaves thinking this is a valid alternative viewpoint. And no, an idea does not become valid simply because it's not impossible. It's not unreasonable to demand more than a faint hope probability before judging an idea worth serious discussion.

This happens once, and you can make it a teachable moment. But when the scenario starts to repeat itself it undermines the effort you're putting into teaching real science.