Ideology or Fact
In many cases, social facts get attacked as ideologies. It also appears this is especially true the closer an item gets to being about power and control. The arena for dissemination of social science discoveries and theories becomes highly politicalized. This is because we all have stakes in how the world operates, we think we have good working knowledges of how the world operates, and we do not realize the extent cultural TBRs on our own senses of how important it is to have the world be like we say it is in order to maintain our senses of power and control.
Take the statement “Women get paid less than men even when they do the same work.” This is a fact. It’s is verifiable through numerous studies, and it is a real and pervasive problem. But in just about any widespread article about this issue this fact, because it is social and related to a perceived loss or gain of power and control, it will be treated -by some- as if it is ideology. Think about how silly it would be if lay people disagreed with the fact “Obsidian is an igneous rock.” Think about how stunted we would be in our understanding of geology! But this is exactly how social facts are often treated by people when their understandings of the world and thus potentially their safety in it have been unconsciously triggered. We can get incredibly irrational when we feel we could possibly suffer a loss of power.