#from anecdotal evidence the issue is definitely rife in economics

[mallpop]

At least in many hard sciences, it’s the pressure in academia to get more funding. You only get livable funding if you make breakthrough research, to put it simply. People outside of research may not realize this, but it’s rare and hard to make these kind of breakthroughs even for the most intelligent people in the world. Intelligence is necessary but a lot of it comes down to luck (i.e. were you inspired by the right ideas or vision at the right time, or even at all).

Since people want to eat, and those especially at well ranked institutions want to stoke their egos or justify their position, they’re forced into generating volumes of “miraculous” research. I was in that grind as a PhD candidate, mentally couldn’t bear the dishonesty coupled with the workload and piss poor pay, and quit.

Scientific fraud is the most baffling thing ever to me like do they think they're just going to make a huge breakthrough and no one will notice that it's fake by trying to replicate their results