Fraud, purportedly a rare occurrence, is uncovered and punished, and cannot ordinarily escape exposure because science replicates its results, especially its important results, and these results are published in journals following peer review. This traditional view is based upon a number of unexamined assumptions. If detected, it is less likely to be reported by fellow ideologues and, if reported, less likely to be acted upon. Interference with the process of self-correction may also occur because adherents to a common ideology react to an attack upon or criticism of one of their members as an attack upon themselves. They may therefore attempt to avoid, defend against, or suppress such an attack.
Ideologues are more forgiving of each other than of their common foe.
It may be all rationalized as serving a greater good. Critical peer reviews and scholarship suffer in such an atmosphere. Detection of fraud and its reporting are most likely to occur from an adversarial quarter, not from friends or fellow ideologues. Diversity and pluralism, in science as in other institutions and in society at large, help safeguard against fraud and facilitates its exposure when it is detected. Deadening effects of ideology on self-correction may be present to a far greater degree than casual observers imagine.