This is an especially troubling problem in the soft-sciences. I recently learned about [post-treatment bias](http://gking.harvard.edu/files/bigprobP.pdf http://

This is an especially troubling problem in the soft-sciences. I recently learned about [post-treatment bias](http://gking.harvard.edu/files/bigprobP.pdf http://gking.harvard.edu/files/bigprobP.pdf) which is one of the bigger problems plaguing the social sciences. Avoiding biasing an experiment when choosing the variables you control for is insanely difficult to the point where I wonder if it's even possible. The scary thing is that people will regularly cite soft-science publications that align with whatever political agenda they may have, and anyone who dares contradict the authority of those studies are shouted down as "anti-intellectual" or other such nonsense. I used to abhor people for leaning on their bibles to push their agendas but I'm starting to see how secular people are basically doing the same thing.