I really don't think the problem was "belligerence towards pre-scientific human knowledge" - the problem was that the Army did not want that knowledge because it came from the navy, and used "it doesn't meet scientific standards" as an excuse to ignore it.

You see the same in lots of discussions, where people make a claim and, when presented with evidence to the contrary, reject it because it's too small a sample - without holding their own claim to the same standards.