A scholar’s ideological agenda does not invalidate the findings of their research

Evidence

However, once one has identified an intellectual agenda on the part of a scholar, this does not absolve one from the task of evaluating that scholar’s evidence and conclusions. To take one example among many, Lammens certainly had a militantly Catholic agenda and the intensity with which he scrutinized the sources for the early history of Islam was in large degree motivated by his hostility towards that religion, but that does not in itself invalidate all his findings about those sources. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 536

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to broader debates about motivated reasoning in scholarship and whether ad hominem critique undermines evidence. — connects to: Critical Theory held that researchers are part of the social object they study — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 299; Praise for the Peru study came from empiricists, not ideological neoliberals — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1939; Ideas can serve republicanism regardless of their author’s self-identification — Adelin-Costin Dumitru, Forging the Resistive Republic: Social…, 27
• DEFINE: Clarifies the distinction between evaluating a scholar’s intentions versus evaluating their actual research findings.