Political science and the replication crisis

[iceaura]

But in some fields, an unknown but large percentage of "research" is conducted so as to support conclusions that the 'researchers' seemingly already passionately believed in prior to beginning the 'research'.

Research in all fields is dominated by the passionate and opinionated. The objectivity of scientific research is not maintained by restricting research to the dispassionate and neutral - good thing, too, because the kinds of dedication and sacrifice necessary require engagement, fierce engagement.

The more moralized a research area is, the more inclined people are to not only disagree but to morally condemn those who disagree with them, and the worse it gets. When hiring and tenure decisions ride on having the proper opinions on various controversial topics, whole fields of study start to be biased.

Prime example: economics.

Although the modern Republican Party has been bringing that kind of pressure to bear on a whole slew of fields - from medical to meteorological.
In agreement with your approach, they have been starting by inventing controversy - because once the existence of "controversy" has been established, the politicians in service of the interested parties have the excuse they need to oppose whatever they consider "moralizing" and righteously interfere with hiring or tenure decisions they don't like.

That's one major reason we are seeing creationists, abortion foes, racist demographers, CO2 boost deniers, agribusiness devoted GMO technocrats, drug company devoted medical technocrats, anti-government Ayn Rand acolytes, nuclear power advocates, and so forth, hired by government funding agencies for political balance, explicitly, in government science funding decisions.