Back in May, I commented upon this new study that the German government had commissioned and delivered to the public. The topic of this report was right-wing extremism in eastern Germany.
The theme of the report was centered around scientific efforts to quantify answers given to the data crew, and produce a quantitative study. Every single 'brick' of science and independent survey was put into place.
At the time, some folks sat....read the report....then put criticism onto the report because it looked more like a 'witch-hunt' than a scientific document.
Time has passed, and it's a bit shocking this week....that the eastern commissioners of the German federal government are backing away from the survey report. They aren't saying fraud....but they do use the word 'sloppy'.
All of this leads back to the Institute for Democratic Research over at the University of Gottingen. This project was funded for 129,000 Euro by the German federal government. One might get the opinion that the team started out with an agenda, and then filled in the data-sets with anything that helped to prove their agenda.
To get folks over the criticism....oddly enough....the team has built a second (newer) version of the report, and reworked the phrases. I suspect the criticism from May has affected their view of the topic.
What was amusing was that the 'blame' for this right-wing extremism was placed on social behavior folks in a couple of communities that fell into the survey area. Then the scientific team cited a lack of political education (meaning lack of intellectualism) and a deprivation awareness that existed within these 'special' people.
In some ways....they poured fraudulent, fabricated, and cherry-picked data into a report....to get the report that they desired. After publishing, the natural agenda would have been some mass media effort to educate the poor 'slobs' in eastern Germany, some special school topics for kids, and some political figures talking over the terrible right-wing folks in eastern Germany. Somehow, there were enough people to read the report and pronounce it as 'fake', and the rest is history now.
The only real loss? 129,000 Euro of German tax revenue thrown down some hole for a fake science report.
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