Completely different field- but I think Charles Darwin's way of "crippling potential criticism of one’s ideas by taking charge of all conceivable counterarguments" is a great example of how important rhetoric is, especially in such 'biased' areas. Just imagine what would have happened to his idea of Evolution if he had not been such a rhetoric genius.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/11/11/adam-gopnik-angels-... "[...] the other great feature of Darwin’s prose, and the organization of his great book, is the welcome he provides for the opposed idea. This is, or ought to be, a standard practice, but few people have practiced it with his sincerity — and, at times, his guile. The habit of “sympathetic summary,” what philosophers now call the “principle of charity,” is essential to all the sciences."