If you don't drag bad ideas out into the light (kicking and screaming, if need be) and beat the crap out of them in rigorous debate, then they fester and grow in dark places and eventually kill you.
Edit: to add, the reason people don't take this tactic anymore, is (in my opinion) because they are 1) intellectually lazy, 2) poor debaters and 3) not comfortable with confrontation.
Edit: to add, the reason people don't take this tactic anymore, is (in my opinion) because they are 1) intellectually lazy, 2) poor debaters and 3) not comfortable with confrontation.