"If, in the end, the data do turn out to be fraudulent, does that say anything about social science as a whole?"

"On some level, the case would be a statistical fluke. Despite what news headlines would have you believe, outright fraud is incredibly rare; almost no one commits it, and almost no one experiences it firsthand. As a result, innocence is presumed, and the mindset is one of trust.... There�s another issue at play: the nature of belief. As I�ve written before, we are far quicker to believe things that mesh with our view of how life should be. [Columbia polisci prof Donald] Green is a firm supporter of gay marriage, and that may have made him especially pleased about the study....  But, perhaps ironically, it was enthusiasm about the study that led to its exposure. The events of the past few days were the result not of skepticism but of belief. Red flags were raised because David Broockman and Joshua Kalla liked the study and wanted to build on it...."

From "How a Gay-Marriage Study Went Wrong" by Maria Konnikova in The New Yorker.