The usual cause of this fraud is pride and greed on behalf of the researchers
Not to forget the good old “publish or perish”, as mostly positive findings get published/accepted by journals and it’s harder to keep your job (i.e. get funding) if you don’t publish any papers
This is the real issue - the incentive structure is completely broken when your career depends on pumping out positive results instead of acurate science, and journals won’t publish null findings even when they’re methodologically sound.
Not to forget the good old “publish or perish”, as mostly positive findings get published/accepted by journals and it’s harder to keep your job (i.e. get funding) if you don’t publish any papers
This is the real issue - the incentive structure is completely broken when your career depends on pumping out positive results instead of acurate science, and journals won’t publish null findings even when they’re methodologically sound.