Impact of Social Sciences – Ad hominem attacks on scientists are just as likely to undermine public faith in research as legitimate empirical critiques: "It is not surprising that accusations of research fraud are just as influential as attacks on the empirical foundation of a claim: an allegation of research fraud contains both an ad hominem attack and an attack on the empirical foundation of the data. What is more surprising is that purely ad hominem attacks (i.e. conflict of interest attacks) were just as effective as direct attacks on the empirical foundation of a claim.
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