What you call the very beginning happens to be three billion years into a three and a half billion year history.
Billion, shmillion, does it matter to us?
I think that what this argument is really about is adherents to mainstream science are upset with what they perceive as heretics making waves in established fields. Happens a lot.
Mainstream media is being challenged, so are the mainstream Protestant denominations, etc. Mainstream education has had a cross to bear with all those pesky home-schoolers. I can even remember when mainstream Rockefeller Republicans were challenged by young conservatives, but that's another time, another thread.
The world turns and changes. Guess we'll have to live with it.