>> Asking a question and finding that the answer is "yes, but not as bad as previously believed" is a contribution to our knowledge
Wait, that is not an accurate characterisation of the paper. "maybe yes, but maybe no" is more accurate:
Maybe yes:
- BLS data supports the proposition, but possible BLS data flaws are highlighted.
Maybe no:
- using other data instead of BLS allows a different interpretation
- perhaps asymmetric in favour of feedlot owners ("this effect is negligible, or cannot be captured by our impulse response-based test")
- perhaps symmetric ("Our preferred interpretation is simpler, with the relationship being symmetric").
>> It's researchers accurately reporting their findings. They aren't "pontificating". They are explaining the nuances of what they discovered when they tried to answer this question.
I'm not convinced that's what's going on here. Could it be that someone(s) has decided the existing literature weights too heavily in favour of a view they don't like. If the existing literature is broadly correct, one thing you could do is publish another paper which broadly agrees but leaves room for some doubt.
If it broadly agrees, could it be less likely to come under robust scruitiny - that could lead to outright public rejection by others.
Introducing a small amount of doubt with the broad agreement could have 2 effects:
1. there now exists some doubt when summarising multiple papers on the topic, a contrarian view has now been injected into the discourse. The contrarian view is not backed up by hard facts, it's reasonable conjecture but nonetheless, when summarising the available papers on a topic, its views should be included in that summarisation, thus unfairly skewing the summarisation view. A view from conjecture is summarised next to views more directly evidenced in underlying data.
2. you can count on someone misrepresenting your findings. In our conversation you said "yes, but not as bad as previously believed", something the paper doesn't actually give hard evidence for but does try to suggest.
To be clear, i don't claim that this is what's going on here, but going back to my original comment, the lack of weight of evidence for these findings does lead me to dismiss the paper.
>> our appetite for truth
I can only speak for myself here but my comment - misguided or otherwise - was in search of truth.