Tom, This is not the place to get into a debate about what scientific research can tell us but I strongly disagree with your overall view and I'm disappointed you're teaching students to throw out the baby with the bathwater since my experience is what they need to develop is more critical thought to distinguish where the baby begins and the bathwater ends.

That said, if you knew my history in academia you'd know that I couldn't agree more that sometimes research is political. But statistical and research METHODS are not political at all, the social structure around them sometimes is. And in fact when the scientific method, statistics and the peer review process are working correctly they eliminate bias and politics that are inherent in other less formal methods of arguing that ones beliefs are objectively correct based on anecdote or more subjective methods. Furthermore, research results are often about way more than description. At their best, especially in fields like medicine, theya re about causation and, eventually about control (prevention of disease and death).