To me, it initially seemed like an experiment in understanding how people know the truth about a commonly accepted idea regarding the fundamental nature of reality. How can you truly know anything that you have not observed and calculated yourself? How do people react when presented an idea that contradicts their understanding of what they have accepted as absolute truth? Most of the arguments for or against FE theory seem to depend on either accepting other people's observations, or questioning them. A lot of people engaged in the debate react with indignation, dogmatic skepticism, and a zealous belief that their side maintains the truth, rather than delving into an honest, deeper understanding of the principles involved in a search for the truth in whatever form it might actually take. But the experiment went off the rails, and has since devolved into a mostly nonsensical slap fight between zealots. And in its current form, it does seem more like an operation to see how easy it is to mislead people like you're saying.