It's been said before but needs to be said again: this is happening everywhere in the biomedical and related fields. The neurosciences, oncology... the list goes on and on. Anyone take a look at AI research lately? How much tweaking is going on there? How much is your big data finding due to the idiosyncracies of your particular dataset?

Psychology, as has historically always been the case--meta-analysis itself bloomed largely from the field--is the one turning inward and looking at itself. And it's getting crap from people who love to use it as their favorite punching bag.

The irony of this article is that it's psychologists looking at other psychologists, doing the math etc.

The truth is closer to the second hypothesis by the author: bullshit is incentivized everywhere in academics. Reality is less interesting, harder, more incremental. Everyone wants the next genius savior to point to because it's a simpler story than reality. Sexy means more pubs, more grant money.