You have the perceptions you have because of the ideals you were sold in school and in your childhood. The role models you choose are those that make you aspire to be the very best human being you can... at least, this was my world. Integrity means something. Honour means something.
So to come out and find that the science I was taught, chase the evidence to find the truth, has been subverted and is now chase the narrative, find the evidence to support the narrative - that's a fundamental problem for me because what is being sold as science in the real world is not what I was taught science was supposed to be in school.
It seems that many others were taught to manipulate the world around them at everyone else's expense to get ahead. They were taught that their own goals and objectives were more important than those of humanity. Are they any more wrong?
Can I blame people for trying to get rich when we're taught in the West that money is success? It buys freedom and happiness. When all the propaganda fed to us by the media every day brainwashes us into believing this narrative, can I really blame anyone for doing whatever they have to, to get rich?
I'm not blaming the public. It's not a trivial problem to solve. We don't live in a culture that rewards integrity. We live in a culture that rewards behaviour that makes people rich.
If you don't put authenticity and integrity at the heart of your cultural beliefs, how can you blame anyone when they ignore it to chase money, which you will be rewarded for?
FWIW, I'm about to defend my PhD in a STEM discipline. In my eyes, science has far less credibility to me now than it did five years ago before I saw how the sausage is made. That's an N of at least one that this not only a problem outside scientific circles.