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I wonder which of the following describes best the downvoter's reasoning:

a) The study is flawed, thus it shouldn't be cited b) You misinterpreted the study c) The study is valid but it's bad news for me, so I decided to shoot the messenger.

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or d) the messenger was paid to deliver only certain messages, whilst the other messengers were fired/never hired in the first place.

By "messenger" I refer to myself (bringing the study to the attention of this thread's readers), it seems that I failed in communicating my point clearly - I'm quite sure you don't imply that I was paid to write this comment:) I admit that it would be better to add 'according to this study' (although there are more, one of them is cited in the article in my link).

or e) the drivel in this study is an example of winning at propaganda by getting people sucked into superficial debates over the wrong questions, which are formulated to stick in peoples heads on repeated hearing.

Get them asking the wrong questions and the answers don't matter. The assumption coded into the question matters. "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" "Does your drunk driving put your two kids at equal risk?"

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