He said he's saddened by people using statistics "almost" correctly to prove what was already "gut feel". I can't quite tell whether his real concern is what y

He said he's saddened by people using statistics "almost" correctly to prove what was already "gut feel". I can't quite tell whether his real concern is what you thought he was saying (i.e., wasted effort), or whether it's the "almost" (but not quite correctly) part, i.e., that researchers use statistics to wrongly prove the gut feel. If it's the latter, then I think a big part of the problem is that people don't understand statistics well enough, not that they intentionally misuse it.