I've repeatedly found that the ability to paraphrase and summarise the opposing positions in a way that the opposition can agree with, is a good indicator of w

I've repeatedly found that the ability to paraphrase and summarise the opposing positions in a way that the opposition can agree with, is a good indicator of whether someone is interested in, and able to have a meaningful discussion in a controversial subject. It might be illuminating to compare this heuristic to the requirement of a decent scientific paper to summarise related work properly.