I don’t think his behavior can be described as “acknowledged the truth” more like “he stopped arguing, conceded the money and still refused to accept the truth”.
He gets credit for paying up yes, but without clearly acknowledging the truth of the matter it seems very hollow and frankly childish and doesn’t reflect positively on him.
You're right; that's a better description, and I was wrong to suggest that he 'acknowledged the truth' in any strong way.
I think my feeling here is in the general vein of Alex Tabarrok's "a bet is a tax on bullshit" or Brian Caplan's "bettor's oath". I'm just happy that he's paying up and not trying to weasel out of the bet. Losing can be painful --- I'm sure losing $10,000 like this stings a lot --- and I want to be sympathetic to that reality: if he can't be magnanimous in this moment, he should at least get some kudos for the fact that he seems to have shut his mouth.
I suspect it was an organized publicity stunt. In the interview the Prof. said "now here is the real danger, because if Derek drives very close to the wind that difference in speed goes to zero. if it's one millionth of one percent, that's like a nuclear bomb exploding behind him.", refering to a formula where the force is calculated with speed difference in denominator.
Obviously he can't be serious about it, because it is inconsistent with the belief that the car can't go faster than wind.
Anyway, the whole thing was very interesting and educational.
For folks who want to try the kind of forecasting being discussed here, Metaculus is a pretty great community: https://www.metaculus.com/
Their FAQ has a great explanation of how they 'score' user forecasts --- including a summary of Brier scores for binary yes/no questions, and the log score used for both binary and continuous questions: https://www.metaculus.com/help/faq/#howscore
