MO, intellectual dishonesty and the Good Wife

A question that has occupied me for a while is 'Who is more intellectually dishonest, the MO (more so the RWMO than the LWMO) or the Chareidim'?

Recent debates about brain death have provided more fodder for thought. I saw that one MO apologist recently accuse the Chareidim of intellectual dishonesty because the Chareidim have no methodology for deciding when Chazal were being literal or allegorical, rather they have a pre-defined outcome (i.e. Chazal are always right) and then they try and develop a theory which leads to that outcome.

But is this so dishonest? I think the Chareidim would say that of course Chazal are always right, that's the core of their belief, and then their job is to try and figure out how that could be. To me, this is the same process one sees with defense lawyers all the time on TV (and I assume in real life). Take the Good Wife for example (an excellent show).Each week it's the same deal - as defense lawyers the starting assumption is that the client is innocent, and their job is to then try and develop a theory that represents that. Sometimes they're right, and sometimes not, but that's their job.

And of course the MO apologists do this too - they have a pre-defined outcome that Torah and Science must both be true, and then they construct their apologetics (which they like to call epistemology because it sounds better) to lead to that outcome. I don't see much difference.

In fact, in this case, I think the Chareidi apologists are actually less dishonest than their MO counterparts. The Chareidim will admit that they believe in Chazal 100% and that's what they hold. However the MO apologists pretend to be on a search for non biased truth, while in fact they are driven by their own pre-conceived outcomes as much as the Chareidim are. Sure, the MO can be more flexible on certain points like Chazal and Science, but ultimately they are constrained by dogma and Orthodox social convention too.

And even worse, I think there is another area where the Chareidim are actually more honest. Chareidi apologists might write nonsense, but they truly believe in their nonsense! However (at least in my experience), the MO apologists don't actually believe in half of what they write, and when cornered or in private they will admit this. Of course I can't name any names because that will get me into trouble, but I have numerous examples across the board of this.

Does it irk me that all these people are intellectually dishonest? Yes.