It saddens me how bad science will be so quickly defended if it confirms preconceived notions that a marginalised group should be dismissed, and then whoever protests this will be slurred as opposing science, as if there could not possibly be a scientific basis to object to it.
This, very much. The attitudes described in the paper really make my blood boil. From refusing to share research data on bogus grounds to dismissing patients as "unhinged", then publishing its own "revised research" just before being forced to release the raw data.
The proper response from the scientific community should be to disqualify every study from Queen Mary University of London until the university owns up to its mistakes, instead of digging in.
Science has, for a growing number of Westerners, become a kind of secular religion complete with its own dogma and irrational adherents who put worship of science (or Scientism) ahead of reason and critical thinking.
This is hardly the first time it has happened.