"All researchers are likely to have motives, so a critic who attacks a researcher's motive wields a double-edge sword:  the research admired by the critic will likely have been done by a motivated researher."  I don't think this is news.  Researchers are working from grants and those grants are backed by certain opinions. Researchers are obliged to generate tests or hypotheses that are biased towards their benefactor's financial backings.  It doesn't matter how honest any scientist goes into the lab, if their projects need backing, they do what they have to do in order to make it work.  It's the job of the journalist to find out how and why they came to their conclusions.