It's easily enough explained by taking it as an assumption that most people are driven primarily by self interest. Remaining to neutral to positive towards an i

It's easily enough explained by taking it as an assumption that most people are driven primarily by self interest. Remaining to neutral to positive towards an influential charlatan gives all sorts of opportunities for personal advancement and benefit. Working to out them requires work and yields an outcome that's going to be somewhere between neutral to highly negative for you. Because it's entirely possible you'll fail, and now you have a "star botanist" with 0 values, who's likely out to get you. Note the article mentions that he had already been investigated following whistleblowing by no less than 8 peers in ~2021. A probe of his activities revealed "insufficient evidence" of misdeeds. It's very easy to fabricate data but extremely difficult to prove with all sorts of means of plausible deniability ranging from randomness to human error during experimentation.