"Moral depravity" is maybe overstating the case. There are some pretty egregious cases that have come to light, but the vast majority of the problem is just a n

"Moral depravity" is maybe overstating the case. There are some pretty egregious cases that have come to light, but the vast majority of the problem is just a natural result of how even people with the best of intentions will still be influenced by a bad incentive structure. For example, a big part of how the file drawer effect happens is that writing papers is expensive and time consuming, and it's hard to get anyone to publish negative papers, and academics' careers operate under a rather brutal "publish or perish" regime. All that adds up to, if you get a negative result, you've got a whole lot of very concrete reasons to cut your losses and move on. The goody two shoes who's scrupulous about reporting all their findings is not going to get rewarded for their efforts with a job. Nor will they be rewarded with the satisfaction of knowing they've done their part to improve the average quality of the published literature. Out-of-work scientists don't get many opportunities to do research.