In my understanding of history (pre-enlightenment), people didn’t gather around ideas that were “correct more often” but gathered around ideas and personalities that reinforced their own ignorance, superstitions and biases and were openly hostile to “correct” ideas and truth, especially if those ideas upset tradition or dogma.
I also don’t understand how you’re getting to “violence was not a default until populations grew” since, perhaps, “default” violence was only properly recorded after populations grew and education/writing became more widespread. It’s very likely everyday violence in small groups was simply accepted as “the way things are”and simply ignored, as it often is even to this day.