> What bothers me about this kind of material is it's such good material for someone who's not honest for "one upping" or saying "oh this is just another exampl

> What bothers me about this kind of material is it's such good material for someone who's not honest for "one upping" or saying "oh this is just another example of [insert phenomenon]". Without looking at the substance. Math also has this property. In particular, and famously, statistics. The problem isn't "this kind of material", as you put it, but the fact that the debates in question (e.g. climate change denial) are waged on appearance rather than substance; quacks get employed to publish studies that look "sciency", and appear to strengthen the arguments of special interests. More generally, misusing "this kind of material", and getting away with it, is precisely the same kind of crime as p-hacking. And please let me offer you a gentle nudge: try not to think of ideas in terms of "this kind of material"; down that path, there are sometimes book burnings. We all intellectually group things together by apparent semblance, but we should all also remember that this grouping is a time-saving tool, not a truth-finding tool. If you want to actually determine the validity of a study's statistical findings, the fact that its authors are from a prestigious university is absolutely no indication of truth. Similarly for any theoretical work, whether in empirical science or, say, history. The measure of truth is in the work, not around it. Which is to say, don't judge books by their covers, even though obviously we all do, all the time.