Me and the others raised dozens of valid, logical points, if our points were baseless the arguments would have died instantly, yet we
persisted, but it all fell off on deaf ears.
What do you mean 'deaf ears'? The arguments were heard and counter-argued. Presenting evidence of something doesn't mean everyone should accept it.
The scientific method compels you to find out what went wrong with your predictions, it compels you to go back and admit the signs you didn't see, not gloat around about how your method is sound, when the predictions you gave were not even a little bit correct.
The signs were never 100%. People who already held a belief that R would come would, in the face of a 50/50 outcome in their favour, of course believe they were right all along. That doesn't change the quality of the evidence given in the first instance. Pro-RTers would point to RTX and say RT is coming, while the rest pointed logically to plenty of nascent techs that were pretty much still born.
What with have here is akin to a trial, with B3D being the jury members, and you after day one saying, "see, the guy's guilty! Call it now and we can all go home." And a couple agree with you, with one saying, "yeah, he's got a suspicious face. I don't like his face. I'm calling it as guilty," while everyone else says they want to see the rest of the arguments and evidence. A week later, the jury ruled 'guilty' and then you say, "see I was right all along." Just being right didn't mean the process could be ignored, and being right after day one's evidence doesn't mean you'd have never been wrong. Even worse, the guy who said, "I don't like his face," jumps up and down saying they were right all along and the jury shouldn't have called them an idiot for their reasoning.
The evidence was inclusive, and only showed a industry movement towards an idea that had not been proven viable, which is where we were asking for evidence of the effectiveness of RT hardware.
I point to 3DTV as an example of a nascent tech that bombed just as RT could have. One could have looked at the way the industry was heading and said it was obvious everything would become 3D, yet it didn't happen. Signs and portents that RT would become the next big thing, consisting of a new API and one IHV adding RT hardware and a handful of games getting RT features, weren't concrete proof. Some people are happy with a 60% confidence rating being considered 'true' but for others, a far higher confidence rating is needed to accept something as a given.
There has been no failure of the scientific method. Heck, there's been no failure because all it was was a debate! There's no investment here, or product design. We aren't responsible for the PS5's architecture and we aren't getting a RT-free console now because some nay-sayers on B3D wouldn't believe in a RT future! A debate is a success if if generates good conversation with good arguments. The discussion was correct and proper, only heated because some contributors were too emotionally attached to the outcome and made it about platform bias (once we axed that one trouble maker, things soon settled down). It's precisely the fact that we can talk about a subject
for years entertaining possibilities that I love B3D so much.