> The gist of her article was that she feared too much of the criticism of past work had been ceded to social media, and that the criticism there is taking on an uncivil tone.
So it seems to me, her complaint was not that research shouldn't be criticized. It was more-so that research should be criticized well, and that social media is a poor place for it, because it favors personal attacks over thoughtful criticism. (I'm not saying I agree with her. Just trying to understand her argument in the best light.)
"Eminent" specialists often argue in favor of eminence (journals, tenured investigators, blah blah) over evidence (tossing an analysis up on arXiv and posting a link to it). Young turks or iconoclasts often do the reverse, since there is a power structure in place via editors, reviewers, study sections, and the like. Orthodoxy often sticks even when the evidence supporting it is quite skimpy (or absent).
Funny thing is, when you pull the underlying data (in fields where this is possible), you routinely find that the reported conclusions are overblown. Not necessarily wrong, but routinely sold as more conclusive than they are (and sometimes they are in fact wrong, whether due to small sample sizes, "outlier removal", or outright fraud).
In no way, shape, or form are these bad habits limited to psychology. They happen in basic biology, they happen in medicine, they happen in clinical trial reporting. It's faster and easier to oversell shitty science than it is to do good, thorough science, so with the tight competition for grant funding, you can imagine what happens next.
Trust whoever you like, but verify results from everyone. There are good people out there who are fastidious; there are good people out there who are sloppy; and there are people who don't care one bit whether they're publishing absolute horse shit. The onus is on you, the reader or researcher, to do the requisite critical thinking (and, perhaps, a few analyses before you waste time running down a dead end).
Keep an open mind, but don't let your brain fall out. Also, many good scientists aren't very nice people, and some very pleasant people in science are shitty scientists. It's very hard to tell a priori which is which, so look at the evidence and decide for yourself.
> The gist of her article was that she feared too much of the criticism of past work had been ceded to social media, and that the criticism there is taking on an uncivil tone.
So it seems to me, her complaint was not that research shouldn't be criticized. It was more-so that research should be criticized well, and that social media is a poor place for it, because it favors personal attacks over thoughtful criticism. (I'm not saying I agree with her. Just trying to understand her argument in the best light.)