I think this is evidence that users are giving merit to posts/threads regarding things they either support, agree with, or are in line with their agenda.

There are a few members that are putting a lot of effort into finding members who have a legitimate desire to learn about (and discuss) bitcoin, and giving them merit, however in many other cases, users are giving merits to posts that in one way or another benefit the person giving the merit. I think this will add to more groupthink, and less challenges to popular ideas. Some of this may be a side effect of the air-drop of merit that everyone received, I am not really sure as of yet.

I would be interested in seeing similar analysis only taking data from merit sent in a 4 week period starting ~a month from now, which would likely remove most of the effect of the sMerit air-drop.