Quite a lot of science is basically a load of crap... more I think than much of the public realises. And, worryingly, possible quite a few doctors and other scientists too.One thing I've noticed is that they are too loose with what can be turned into a study. Far too many times the methodology was flawed and how it got past and into the literature baffles me. Like, how do you let a paper go through when a bunch of co-author say that the data is made up? Was it a prevelant provlem and is it only an issue because antivaxxers picked it up?
Science - both in terms of collaboration and peer review - works under an assumption that scientists are well intentioned and honest. There's a debate going on after the covid debacles about whether this needs to change. Much of it I suspect is institutional, "publish or perish". There's just too much benefit in getting stuff out there, potentially with iffy quality and an inclination to cut corners, bullshit, and outright fraud.
There are authors packing out junk that they know is junk, but good for padding CVs. And there are junk journals (not necessarily even predatory publishers) that accept junk with low oversight because they get paid, and if they can get their hands on something big and/or controversial, all the better. In some cases, a peer reviewer knows the paper is kinda shit, but decides it's going into a low rank journal few people will probably read and even if they do those readers will assume it's pretty shit, so what's the harm? Well, maybe we're seeing the harm. Turns out there are a lot more dumbos out there who want to spin lead into gold than they think.