Perhaps it was accidental in most cases. However, in the field of medical studies, the withholding of studies with negative outcomes (and their data) could be rightly described as "highly unscrupulous" researcher behavior. And this has apparently been de rigeur in medical studies for some time, and continues today:
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that published results are near worthless, if those publishing results are allowed to withhold studies. You just do studies until you get the results you want, and then publish that one.
So, it is difficult to blame people for doubting things, when there is evidence of widespread "hacking" of results by so-called scientists.
There's a big difference between being able to find instances of people doing this kind of thing, and widespread hacking of results. I think it's a given that it goes on sometimes, especially in cases where there is financial motive for doing so. But as far as it being a widespread issue? I have never seen evidence of that.
Beyond that, there's people actively working on ways to correct for publication bias in meta-analysis, to the point that it's a pretty fundamental aspect of any proper analysis.
http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/2014/6/the-s...
Perhaps it was accidental in most cases. However, in the field of medical studies, the withholding of studies with negative outcomes (and their data) could be rightly described as "highly unscrupulous" researcher behavior. And this has apparently been de rigeur in medical studies for some time, and continues today:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/05/scandal...
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that published results are near worthless, if those publishing results are allowed to withhold studies. You just do studies until you get the results you want, and then publish that one.
So, it is difficult to blame people for doubting things, when there is evidence of widespread "hacking" of results by so-called scientists.