He was fighting social proof. Because they viewed him as an outsider no amount of facts will convince them. They won't take his word for it and they won't spend the time verifying his facts.

Been there many times. Including when a room full of programmers laughed at me for suggesting randomizing a list prior to using quick sort because "it messes up the big Oh complexity"

(Yes yes I know there are simpler ways to handle quick sort attacks but that wasn't why they were laughing)