The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[asteckley]

It is a typical and well-documented phenomenon in psychology that the more people have to defend their beliefs, the more convinced they become of them...

Well, naturally! It is a phenomenon that hardly needs documenting. When an idea elicits continual criticism without revealing an actual flaw, and it becomes apparent by the repetition that no new argument against the idea is being found, then it raise one's confidence that the idea has merit.  (A more interesting phenomenon is how people react to any evidence that threatens their beliefs. )