Why don't we have a Research & Statistics Commission in our country that mirrors an organization like the Securities & Exchange Commission? I am certainly not a fan of big, intrusive government but it seems odd to me that the Benevolent Bastards who sit in positions of power have never created such a commission and it is certainly something that would be more useful than the Governing Gumbies trying to pass Hate Speech Laws, or laws dictating what kind of light bulbs we are permitted to buy, or laws dictating that children are no longer allowed to go tobaganning without a helmet.
But think about it. Academic Research & Statistics have become a completely corrupt area of our society and they are being used to commit massive amounts of blatant fraud for monetary gain - a crime.
When a CEO like Bernie Ebbers or a tycoon like Conrad Black gets caught cooking the books or providing fraudulent information in the world of business, the government rushes in to judge them and sentence them to lengthy jail terms for their dishonest, fraudulent crimes.
But why has no Academic ever been jailed for wilfully creating fraudulent statistics & research in regard to rape, domestic violence, or a host of other dishonest claims that these Ivory Tower Assholes have been foisting upon the public for the past several decades? Many times such statistics and research is specifically manufactured to be presented to the government to demand taxpayer funding for whatever the cause du jour is, be it DV Shelters/Programs, Campus Rape Crisis Centers, $0.76 on the dollar bullshit. The thing is, if it can proven that the research is blatantly biased and dishonest, and it is being wilfully used to extract millions or even billions of dollars from the taxpayers, then such academics & lobbyists are committing blatant fraud. If a CEO or a CFO were to produce purposefully falsified numbers like that to their shareholders, they would spend several years rotting in prison. And that is just a crime perpetrated against a few people (the shareholders). But when academics & lobbyists do the exact same thing, they are fraudulently profiting themselves or their cause to truly gargantuan proportions at the expense of your tax dollars. A punishment should be made for these dishonest academics that is similar to any other person who "cooks the books."
Fraud is fraud. I don't give a shit about your Ph D, asshole.