Entering a new environment, there are two basic choices, adapt or disrupt. It's what defines whether you are the protagonist or antagonist. That and the outcome.

The thing is, over time, lines get blurred. New knowledge is found that doesn't always directly contradict earlier knowledge but in the refutation of said earlier knowledge, builds an opposition. Culture becomes counter-cultural becomes counter-counter-cultural and so on. Eventually everything just gets blurry.

This notion wouldn't work in engineering. Planes would crash more than they flew. Most of the modern economy relies on precision.

If the environment is just, it's sensible to adapt. If it's unjust, it's superior to disrupt. Just disruptors of an unjust system have always been considered heroes in human narratives across all cultures. But who arbitrates what is just?

Debate is the arbitration of opinion.  The conclusion of a debate is some sort of verdict and viably, in policy-making, a just compromise between competing narratives.  It is the mechanism by which two conflicting beliefs are able to merge into one conclusion.

The most central mechanism of debate is evidence. Evidence is generally thought of as proof of fact between that which is true or false.  There are no nulls in the concept of evidence. 

The opinion more supported by fact is generally the superior one. Behavior is ideally influenced by fact.  Such is what should drive public policy and ought be the goal of governance.

In science, facts are immutable.  Truth exists.  Absent this maxim, science would fail; there would be no phones, radio, planes nor spaceships.  Truth matters.

Mud is malleable.  Those that treat truth like mud are malleable.

When the truth of character precludes adaptation, the unjust disrupt.  Truth may not be rigid but it is firm; truth is substantial.

Sociopaths are limited by their lack of empathy.

Criminals crave chaos.