The reason is pressure to get the papers out as fast as possible or else you won’t get any more grants. It should be embarrassing to publish garbage, but for lots of people who have succeeded in the current system it appears not to be.<p>Everyone involved was rather sheepish afterwards except the post doc. He had felt much the same as me, but didn’t feel he could raise the issue with his boss. Privately he was very grateful I had stood up to his boss, as he didn’t feel he could do the same and was under enormous pressure to pump out the data. All round not good.