It is not a flawed metaphor, Bill. The chief could listen to thos explanations all he wanted, but he might, for example, say "I am a skeptic" and insist his long-standing belief in animism was too well-established to be put aside by this unproven assertion about radio waves.

Granted, the metaphor only goes so far but the parallel to the present situation is truer than you would wish to admit, IMHO; specifically, a predilection to keep to a fixed and relatively bounded model is precipitating the election of a wrong source and wrong diagnosis.
Or so it seems to me.

A