I think one of the things you have to remember about quite clever but not brilliant people (used to teach philosophy many aeons ago) is that if they are a contrarian bent, there is nothing they like more than to devote their considerable intelligence to "squaring the circle". Defending the indefensible, going against the common herd, is their idea of fun.
I think it goes something like this. Common sense tells us the world is flat and the sun moves across the sky (after all, the horizon looks pretty flat) and it took some very clever thinkers to establish, in the face of considerable opposition, that it was round and in fact goes round the sun.
Therefore (dodgy logic follows - but I really think this is part of what is going on in their heads) if I can be the one to show that other common sense views are wrong (and remember, a lot of common sense views are pretty right - like stones fall, humans are a sexually dimorphic species...) I will become as famous as Galileo. Oh, and furthermore, the people telling me I am wrong are as evil as the Spanish Inquisition.
It's a form of extreme intellectual arrogance. "I can prove the little people are wrong and show them just by the brilliance of my mind that stones fall upwards..."