Intellectual Honesty

My favorite part from "Scientific Literacy and the Habit of Discourse", Seed Magazine's award-winning essay responding to "What it means to be Scientifically Literate in the 21st century":

The goal of science is to find those ideas that can withstand the long and hard barrage of evidence-based argument. That lesson must be experienced anew by the members of each generation, irrespective of their careers. Mastery of scientific concepts and theories is a necessary starting point, but it serves only as a prerequisite to joining the never-ending dialogue. Students must learn first-hand how to both imaginatively create new hypotheses and to dispassionately critique them. Many commentators have rightly implored us to make certain that young people encounter the "thrill" of discovery. While this is undeniably desirable, it is arguably even more crucial that they experience the agony (if only on a modest scale) of having a pet hypothesis demolished by facts. [emphasis mine]

In some of the technical arguments I've been tempted to get into, I find my arguers lack this intellectual honesty -- a kind of egoistic ignorance prevents them from recognizing an attack on their ideas versus an attack on them, and that leads to very strange things like them changing a definition in midst of an argument just to win, without regard for the truth. Fortunately for me, I don't care anymore, and sadly, neither do they.