I posted a comment about this, but I think it's worthy of a post. I will summarize very briefly.
In 1973, David Rosenhan, a psychologist, published a study of mental institutions that basically went viral. In "On Being Sane in Insane Places" Rosenhan claimed to have sent 12 average people to voluntarily be assessed by different mental institutions. He catalogued the diagnoses they received and how long they spent institutionalized. This study was shocking in purporting to show how poorly diagnoses work and in exposing flaws in treatment. His claims, followed in 1975 by the famous movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest essentially killed off institutionalization in the United States and around the world. Those who supported chemically treatments, as opposed to psychotherapy and hospitalization, won a resounding victory, and that's the world we live in today.
The only problem is, Rosenhan's paper was a complete work of fiction, and he lied repeatedly about the experiment, about the results of the experiment, even about the people in the experiment. Rosenhan, himself was one of the participants, and the alleged experimental protocols that participants were supposed to follow simply did not exist. When experiences didn't match what he was looking for, he simply dismissed and ignored them, and made up 'alternative facts' instead.
Investigative reporter Susannah Calahan and history of psychiatry professor Andrew Scull have thoroughly destroyed Rosenhan's paper and results, and yet it is still the most formative and influential piece of work in the field in at least the last 75 years.
Andrew Scull's lengthy article. I highly recommend reading it all:
https://gwern.net/doc/psychiatry/schizophrenia/rosenhan/2023-scull.pdf
Archive: https://archive.is/fqt8z
This needs to be more widely known. Along with the perverted Kinsey (enough said) and the fraudster Ancel Keys, of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, whose work lead directly to the false belief that "all fat is bad" and who is personally responsible for the high-carb low-fat diet trends of the 1960s on that have killed hundreds of millions, it shows the power that corrupt, fraudulent, and narrative-driven activist scientists can have on reshaping society around us.
No, we should NOT "trust the science," and to say otherwise is distinctly anti-scientific.
Your interest is in both the replication crisis, and the knowledge filter. These overlap. When those old studies are cited 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚢, a disclaimer is made that due to ethics holding human life in higher regard the old study is not falsifyable ( can't be reproduced). John Money is the most famous example of this, and you don't even have to look at the topic.
Grievance studies affair is a hilarious example of social sciences just grabbing what they want. Some of this was still being used, and citied the last I checked.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievance_studies_affair
The knowledge filter overlaps due to peer review bullshit. You've heard that saying about the old guard having to die out? They made it worse, the person publishing has to pay to be published these days. Grants are written in such a manner that you have to be on your toes, and have good ethics. Because of you're not careful the grants are written with the desired outcome included with the acceptence.
Then you have experiments where the equipment is so expensive only universities can afford them. Or, the government has made a random innocent item illegal to own. I don't tend to type so much on my phone, but feel free to ask questions. I usually just type : knowledge filter. It's like a brick wall.
Bullshit producers gatekeeping the production of bullshit to ensure that all new bullshit produced draws upon and supports the previous bullshit, while aspiring bullshit producers stroke and rig and pander their bullshit to meet the tastes of the existing bullshit producers so that one day they can get better bullshit production jobs where they get to gatekeep the production of new bullshit so it keeps THEIR bullshit relevant.
It's all just millions of people, trillions of dollars, and decades of time wasted, isn't it? A civilisational oroboros of brown-nosing.
Phrasemaker!