Your concession that “arguments about interpretation” do occur at conferences is all that I have ever been trying to say. I’m using the term “debate” to mean “argument about interpretation [of data, results, etc.]”. And I never said or suggested that debate could not be constructive.
You are using a very narrow meaning of “debate” – the notion of two people with inflexible opposite positions standing on a stage, with each trying to deny every point the other makes. But there is no reason why debaters, even in a formal stage debate, need to be doctrinaire. They might start out in apparent disagreement, but in the course of making their case (from evidence), discover that they have more in common than they thought, and might end up in a large measure of agreement. And all the more is this the case in the context of an academic scientific context, where an initial disagreement that might seem gauntlet-throwing might, with back and forth between two open-minded professionals, produce near-agreement or agreement.
I’ve been at many academic conferences where scholars, in question periods after presentations, argue over the interpretation of evidence – literary evidence, historical evidence, etc., and the term “debate” is perfectly appropriate for the sort of point-counterpoint dialogue that often ensues. No, it’s not a debate in the staged sense, but it’s debate in a perfectly normal English sense of that word. Your continued attempt to misrepresent my point – my point being that it is healthy when experts (scientists or others) who disagree confront each other and exchange arguments for their respective interpretations of evidence – does not appear to have any good motive.