The increase in "loss of integrity" is a symptom of the "socialist/liberal" disease in which any lie is OK as long as the perpetrator of the falsehood feels he is doing it "for a good cause". That this propensity spills over from the left into other spheres of philosophy is an unfortunate consequence of the above.
However--in the long run, it doesn't matter, as THE TRUTH "WILL"!!!! COME OUT. The fact that the falsifiers are being investigated and identified on a regular basis actually says that the overall process is working as it should--it just takes a bit longer and a bit more effort than it used to in the "old days" when research integrity was held in higher esteem.
You know, I wish I shared your optimism. In my current field of environmental politics, I have seen a MASSIVE increase in bogus "science" and no sign that it is abating, indeed there is a building culture around self-justified scientific distortion:
"Gaian perception connects us with the seamless nature of existence, and opens up a new approach to scientific research based on scientific institutions arising from scientists' personal, deeply subjective ecological experience. When the young scientist in training has sat on a mountain top, and has completed her first major assignment to 'think like a mountain', that is, to dwell and deeply identify with a mountain, mechanistic thinking will never take root in her mind. When she eventually goes out to practise her science in the world, she will be fully aware that every interconnected aspect of it has its own intrinsic value, irrespective of its usefulness to the economic activities of human beings."These monsters are taking over the universities, as you know. They are turning subjectivity into a religion. It is deliberate. Such people are easy to use and wealth can thus be redirected by democratic means. Note how we seem to be moving in the direction of regulating carbon dioxide, notwithstanding the growing scientific indication that anthropogenic warming is miniscule or that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are niether unpredented nor destructive. It's mere political force intended to enrich the politically dominant.- STEPHAN HARDING
No, I am not so optimistic.