I do think "scientists" paid by big business often manipulate results to meet the ends of their corporate benefactors. Particularly the scientific deniers of climate change. Not all scientists are noble.

So, I might have voted yes on that question as stated.

The vast majority of scientists do not manipulate data or results, but there are bad apples, particularly the right wing, venal types.

I think the ratio of manipulated results is much higher than we would like to think it is. To think otherwise, imo, is just furthering the illusion of the plantation being about freedom.

I think most of them are bought, or at least those which make it anywhere are the results of selective funding, which gives us the same end, manipulated pictures.

The problem with your argument is that instead of the history of serious science being crammed full of hucksters, they are actually not that frequent. Science has a check-valve where you have to publish your results to be taken seriously by other scientists. Those results have to be reproducible and verified. They almost certainly will be tested. So, if someone is throwing out manipulated data or results, they will soon be found out and exposed. It really doesn't happen that often.

Corporate "science" is another matter. If they choose, they have the money to hire a mouthpiece who will produce a study that says exactly what they want it to say. They have done so many times, but as a portion of all scientific activity it is a small percentage. And even these scientists-for-hire get found out soon enough.

Manipulation is probably on the order of the ratio of climate change deniers to all climate scientists--less than 5%.

A point that many people would have in grasping. Thank you.

get funded are the ones, overwhelmingly, that profit someone.

And that is manipulation.

The question was rhetorical, but the reality is that people WANT very badly to believe what you are saying is true. It's not.

True Believers always have that blind spot.

(from Webster's):
Definition of SCIENTIST:
1: a person learned in science and especially natural science

Definition of WHORE:
3: a venal (willing to do dishonest things in return for money) or unscrupulous person

The world has a shortage of scientists but no short supply of whores according to Webster's 3rd definition...

Are there whores out there who view their integrity as a commodity, something to be bartered and treated as a resource instead of a virtue or principle? YES (most frequently by those who openly profess any kind of fundamentalist faith, but sadly also among those trained in the scientific method just enough to be plausible to the mainstream idiocracy ).

Do true scientists, those who seek knowledge and the opportunity to apply that knowledge to benefit mankind, manipulate data? 100% NO...it is anathema to the pursuit of science as a true discipline. I have spent the last 20 years of my life in the pursuit of science - in engineering methods for purifications of therapeutic pre-cursors that are used to assemble novel treatments to treat things like Lyme disease, Muscular Dystrophy, and Multiple Sclerosis. I will never be a Nobel laureate nor will I be famous for it. I did not pursue academia or teaching, and I will only play a very small part in the larger machine, but I would rather die than falsify my research or pervert my methods to appease a pencil pushing asshat or source of funding.

This stance has undoubtedly led me to situations where the more expedient path would have been to fudge the data, massage the numbers, present a rosier picture and downplay the potential negatives. I'll never be rich or famous, but I will leave this world with my integrity intact and having made my own meager contribution to the world in the process. It pains me a great deal to have known people who cannot say the same; but thankfully, their numbers are more inline with the 3-5% of climate science deniers than the majority would believe...but what do you expect from an opinion poll in a country with more than 40% of the public believes the universe itself is younger than the pyramids?