A secondary mistake for Ph.D.s in particular is requiring an original contribution to science instead of a demonstration of appropriate levels of mastery, because this requirement really screws over students who realize that their thesis is wrong, or intractable, too late. And even worse incentivizes cheating above and beyond the already existing incentives.

> Would there be less incentive to do bullshit studies and cave to political pressures and bribes if the people doing the studies didn't need the job to survive?

People who genuinely need the job to survive, quit, and get a job that allows them to survive, sometimes alternating this with academia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Streleski ). Or like the graduate students and Post-docs at the University of California, they band together and strike.

Social pressures and sunken-cost fallacies affect enough people of all socioeconomic classes. Especially when the added grief is spun as a status symbol.