this one?? "I dealt with quite a lot of these papers early in my career and they do a wonderful job of backing up grant proposals but a poor job of being correct."

No, I'm pretty sure I meant they can get you grants but are, on the whole, hogwash. I do admit to using these studies to write grants to get money to do things for people. I was a bit of a crusader in my younger years before I realized the end never justifies the means.

I kind of thought the same thing, but then again he didn't mention the direction of the disparity.

peer reviewed scientific, mathematical, or engineering papers > peer reviewed social science papers.

Right, I got that from the overall context. It's just that when one reads a comparison worded the way yours was, one expects the latter item to be the stressed and greater one. Eg:

Beth is nowhere near as good looking as Tricia.

Without other context, I'd assume that Tricia is much better looking according to the author of the comment.