Every group will have propagandists. Every group will have popularizers and writers who produce pop books for the group. God knows I have nothing against such people on principle!

But they can get carried away. They can take shortcuts and easily be tempted to play to the wishes of the group and compromise the truth.

Every healthy group has scholars–people known for being careful and circumspect and writing their results without fear or favor.

And you know a group is in the process of imploding into an intellectual, tribalistic, sectarian black hole when the scholars start attacking those who speak the truth in response to egregious falsehoods passed off by the popularizers.

In the valley of the blind the one-eyed man gouges it out to fit in.