A third reason Garner didn’t mention is the increasing commercialization of science and medicine, which has spawned an army of researchers on the take from heal

A third reason Garner didn’t mention is the increasing commercialization of science and medicine, which has spawned an army of researchers on the take from health product companies. Science is a method of discovering truth about the natural world despite human imperfections, misperceptions, and (more rarely) malevolence and fraud. It's a process-- a system, if you will-- and one that few human cultures have been able to implement. Science requires a certain outcome-indifference. This is why it's hard-to-impossible to study questions such as life after death (a universal concern where everyone cares deeply about the answer) or whether there's a God. On the other hand, one can scientifically study the mechanics of how the body dies, because for most people, having the correct answer is more important than what the answer (e.g. the precise biological processes through which it happens) is. The problem is that science, as a system, is under attack from commercial pressures as well as the rapid pace of technological society. Technology and industry continue to advance, but the regulation and verification of knowledge (e.g. science) is being backlogged a bit, which allows a lot of fraud to get through. Tack on the pressures on the individual to remain employed or get tenure, and you get scientific fraud.