I think of it more in terms of the people. Someone doing research on a topic for any length of time probably sees themselves as dedicated (time commitment) and intelligent (PhD and post doc work). They really strongly believe what they believe. And someone else comes along with similar traits strongly believes a different thing.
If a person can acknowledge that this other person is smart and qualified, and recognize that they hold a belief that, if true, implies the believe that the person holds is incorrect. Then they have to deal with being wrong on something they have invested a lot of time into and believed for possibly a very long time.
Throw in a bit of imposter syndrome and I think it would be surprising is people just switched their point of view when presented with an alternative. Instead it sets up this conflict where each party tries really hard to prove the other wrong, and after one or more rounds of that one point of view or the other generally prevails (at least from the perspective of the audience). This is when really good science gets done because it does a great job of neutralizing implicit biases.
If a person can acknowledge that this other person is smart and qualified, and recognize that they hold a belief that, if true, implies the believe that the person holds is incorrect. Then they have to deal with being wrong on something they have invested a lot of time into and believed for possibly a very long time.
Throw in a bit of imposter syndrome and I think it would be surprising is people just switched their point of view when presented with an alternative. Instead it sets up this conflict where each party tries really hard to prove the other wrong, and after one or more rounds of that one point of view or the other generally prevails (at least from the perspective of the audience). This is when really good science gets done because it does a great job of neutralizing implicit biases.