[pmarreck]

It's not an "ideological battle" if it's empirical (based on evidence and rational discourse).

The only "ideological battles" are religious in nature. I'm fine with keeping religion off HN, but you can't just call a contentious topic "ideological", especially if there is evidence and/or rational debate to be had. The fact that an insufficient number of people opt-in to discussing some topic in that way does not make it "ideological". Would you also consider conversation about climate change "ideological" and thus unworthy of HN?

In any event, the original post (interestingly) got unflagged, so this was superfluous anyway.