I am in academia and I see the same thing among my colleagues. In physics and chemistry. I also see a lot of data manipulation, lies in methodology, omission of any flaws in the studies, just to get published. Because that is the only measure of your value ti the institution.

Fuck, even the head of the institution publicly announced that only quantity matters, not quality. Because the government funding for research also depends only on quantity.

>> what experience is that based on?

Graduate school, MS at Harvard & MIT, PhD at UIUC.

Both my MS and PhD supervisors were brilliant and strongly believed in publishing only when they had something real to talk about, which I respected a lot. But it was clear this wasn't what the top professors were doing. They were running paper mills.

>> What fields in academia?

Elec engineering & CS.

>> Do you work there or have friends there

I don't work there, although I was offered several positions. This culture is pretty much why I chose industry. In the real world, most customers care about real achievements.

Lots of friends, yes.