Exactly! And disputing it in this way just adds credence to the argument. Failing to rejection the premicr wholesale gives tacit approval that sometimes it might be the case, and sets us up to keep having to respond like this, rather than saying any argument centered on DEI is bullshit.

A lot of science around trees and forest management has gone this way. Forest used to be seen as competitive areas that needed to be thoroughly managed to be healthy. Now we know that’s not true at all, and overall would be better off if we just let them be (in most, though not all cases). Same with the idea that trees communicate with each other and share resources. This was dismissed and ridiculed for a long time, but has now been pretty resoundingly proven true. Peter Wohlleben’s The Secret Life of Trees talks a lot about this.