Incentives and Hypocrisy

So as I was listening to an EconTalk podcast today, I had a thought while they were discussing climatologists and incentives. They gave the economic answer that incentives drive behavior so if a researcher will get money and prestige if they declare global warming is happening, guess what? More researchers will say global warming is happening. Incentives drive behavior.

Well, I figured with my accounting degree, I would take a different approach to reach the same conclusion. Now, if a company is large enough, it can demand results of its auditors. The auditors can't fight back because to lose the client would be to lose the firm. (Before Enron and the resulting rules, audit companies made more money consulting for clients so companies would threaten to stop purchasing consulting services to get the audit results they desired.) Now, when a climate researcher is working for grants from a global warming advocacy group, the researcher is like the audit firm. Deliver the wrong results and lose the grant. So, just like the auditors, the researcher gives up and goes along; what the researcher believes is not important in this example because they aren't acting on their beliefs, though if they believed in global warming, there would be less of a struggle between researcher and advocacy group. (I am giving the researchers the benefit of the doubt that as scientists, facts trump ideology, but that is not always the case.)

So here is my question for you. How come it is wrong for audit companies to give up and go along with the client's wishes, but not wrong for researchers to give up and go along with the advocacy group's wishes? What makes auditors so special? Or what makes researchers so special? (Gotta be one or the other that makes the difference.) Kinda interesting when you think about it. Weak auditors generally only hurt investors and in a way, employees if the company collapses. Researchers on the other hand are generally supporting policies that will affect everybody. So how come auditors are held to such a higher standard? You wouldn't believe how often in accounting classes I have to listen to the public good argument applied to auditors, how they protect investors, which is somewhat true. How come that argument is never applied to researchers? Shouldn't they be the ones truly doing public good? I mean, an auditor is weak, only investors are hurt. I don't invest with that company, no big deal. A researcher fudges the numbers, the advocacy group uses the fudged number to call for another tax or spending increase, everybody hurts. What is the difference?

By the way, while I used auditors, corporate executives and politicians also face the similar incentives and also tend to get criticized, though in the politician's case, generally only by the opposition party. What makes climate researchers so darn special? I really want to know cause I want auditors treated the same way. (Now, this can be read as I want auditors treated to lower standards or researchers held to higher standards. I really don't care which actually happens.) All I want is consistency. Is that too much to ask?