David, you write “What happens when “data” runs into Orwell’s “1984″ and researchers distort the evidence?”
You cannot stop anyone `cooking`the data. I am afraid it happens all the time. The key is replication. The whole idea behind proper science is that when any measurement is made, then the way the measurements were made is also described. It should then be possible for others to replicate the data. Only when measurements have been made, replicated, and the numbers match within the inevitable error, can we really say that we have proper measurements.