Applying Double Standards to ‘‘Divisive’’ Ideas

The question addressed by this paper is: Is it appropriate to hold politically-sensitive research to a higher standard than other research? Despite appearances, it is a political paper, endorsing Jensen's research, condemning Jensen's critics, and its conclusion is that it is not appropriate to hold politically-sensitive research to a higher standard.

Inspired by the crypto-political nature of this paper, another way to phrase the general question addressed by the paper might be: How do we prevent scientific research from being contaminated by politics?

Suppose that we required all scientific papers to disclaim any political agendas (perhaps a standard disclaimer at the top). Then someone with a political agenda could gain the support of a scientific paper, simply by lying on the disclaimer.

Suppose that we required all papers to pass a "political conclusion" filter - editors systematically reject all papers that reach a conclusion that favors one political agenda over another. Then much valuable research would be suppressed - and someone with a political agenda could gain support of a political agenda by corrupting the decision of whether a given paper reaches a political conclusion.

Suppose that we allowed all papers, so long as the data passes certain statistical tests (e.g. p-value of 0.05). Then someone with a political agenda could gain the support of a scientific paper, simply by only submitting papers which support their conclusion.

This might be a signalling problem. Can we make it more costly to create political hay from fucking with the scientific process than any benefit the political actors might get from it?

It may be "meta" in the sense that it's a paper about a paper about a paper, but a lot of it assumes more familiarity with the papers involved than you'll find here.