In my experience, about a third or half of the 'real' scientists I've met are firmly in "Big S" science. It's really not that different. People that complain about this a lot are often jealous, in my experience. The failures are certainly high-profile, though.
As for reproducibility, it's all case by case. We've (real? scientists) been having the same discussions about data quality forever. It just seems to have found a fresh audience. There's a reason a curmudgeonly PI might insist in Western Blots and - gasp! - Northerns from time to time. Most fields were built off of some real science. Molecular biology certainly was, and to think that just stopped happening in the early 2000s is the height of ignorance.
There is cause for alarm. I give pretty much all 'genomic' work a very wide berth unless the lab has a real genetics background, and aside for a few labs, anything with 'microbiome' in it is certifiable garbage. And clearly some entire fields are on shaky ground, namely psychology. But lets not circlejerk our pure 'little s' science ego's too vigorously.
You misunderstand, perhaps. I mean that the data itself is fraudulent, let alone the interpretations or the controls on the experiment. Many PIs have been making up the data, essentially. Pulled from thin air with a little rand() thrown on top. Now the flood gates to this behavior are open and 'accepted', at least by the people that cut the checks.
I think you missed a decimal point or two here -- $42,000/month for a 100 square foot office can't be right :).
Also, if you haven't been following the 'X-ray Carrots' fiasco, that is a BIG deal in science and Science. VERY short summery: Andrew Wansink at Cornell made up a bunch of data and results, he published them, he got caught. One of these papers was about calling carrots as 'x-ray carrots' makes kids eat more of them, hence the name of the fiasco. Here's a good way into the mess [1]. Anyway, some papers were retracted, there was an investigation, yadda yadda. Now, in 'normal' science, he would have been banished from the field for this nonsense. But in 'finding-or-famine', he got off essentially scot-free. Nothing happened, really. He's still the head of the department (AFAIK), he still brings in cash, the FDA still is using his findings. This is a huge blow to science and a huge boon to Science.
The existential crisis is now out in the open: you can cheat with impunity, publish whatever, if you get caught nothing will happen, just bring in the dollars.
Now is not a good time to go to grad school. I think they're just going to have to throw out ALL US based bio-science (at least) from about 2003 to whenever heads start rolling. It's all crap, maybe, who knows.
[0] Science and science are different, though look similar. Big Science is the grant machine and the big money side of science. Splashy, barely replicated, large clean buildings, pensions, perfectly fit for corporate needs. Think Big Tobacco, BPA plastics stuff, power poses like Cuddy's, that kinda stuff. It's like the difference between the Military Industrial Complex and actually kicking down doors in Mosul. 'Little s' science is what you are probably thinking of when you think of science generally.
[1]http://andrewgelman.com/2017/04/06/dear-cornell-university-p...