[stareatgoats]

OK so this just confirmed my hunch: the driver for this type of research is ideological. I'm not overly disgusted by it such as someone in the "anti-academia, pro-business" camp might be, I pick the chips on my shoulder with some care. But I much prefer research that is not ideologically biased - in any direction. The more extremist, the less I prefer it.

I'm familiar with the notion that "everything is politics" and the like, but it is a completely useless rule of thumb for everyone but undergraduate zealots and ideologues, who ultimately prefer to spend their energy defending their bias instead of looking at the data.