From the Earth to the Moon

by Darren Rigby

ANSWER: OUR MAN FLINT

 

As alluded to by the flavor text ("initial explosion that set everything in motion"), the theories being compared are halves of episode names from The Big Bang Theory.

The highlighted episode name, and the one from which the solution entry is derived, is the Lizard-Spock Expansion; an extension of the game of Rock-Scissor-Paper. The "four mutually-exclusive systems" represent four sets of letters assigned to the elements {Rock, Scissor, Paper, Lizard, Spock}. Entering the superior possibilities for the final solution (with the earlier letter alphabetically placed in the top row) spells the answer OUR MAN FLINT.