The best kind of insight is the ‘duh’ insight—catching something that is exceedingly common, almost routine, but something that no one talks about. I believe this is one such insight.
The standards for citing congenial research (that supports the hypothesis of choice) are considerably lower than the standards for citing uncongenial research. It is an important kind of academic corruption. And it means that the prospects of teleological progress toward truth in science, as currently practiced, are bleak. An alternate ecosystem that provides objective ratings for each piece of research is likely to be more successful. (As opposed to the ‘echo-system’—here are the people who find stuff that ‘agrees’ with what I find—in place today.)
An empirical implication of the point is that the average ranking of journals in which congenial research that is cited is published is likely to be lower than in which uncongenial research is published. Though, for many of the ‘conflicts’ in science, all sides of the conflict will have top-tier publications—-which is to say that the measure is somewhat crude.
The deeper point is that readers generally do not judge the quality of the work cited for support of specific arguments, taking many of the arguments at face value. This, in turn, means that the role of journal rankings is somewhat limited. Or more provocatively, to improve science, we need to make sure that even research published in low ranked journals is of sufficient quality.