Falsifying results to confirm your a priori assumptions in a published paper is a good method (if it fails to be recognized by the referees) to get grab of further grants to sustain your position.
Seems unlikely that it is a JPEG compression artifact since it appears at EXACTLY the right spot for them to make their conclusions.
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As this Ex VP of Pfizer (giant pharma corporation) makes clear - it is almost exclusively the case that such manipulation of science is the result of bribes from pharma corporations. There would need to be an investigation of who was offering grants for continuation of the work of the researchers.
I don't know how it works in Canada, but in Germany most academic researchers get their grants from governmental and privately funded (donation-based) charity organizations.
The level of subterfuge involved means that it is not always obvious on the surface where money is coming from - 'charities' are notoriously corrupt and a favourite vehicle for a variety of frauds. That said, I don't know anything about funding of research in Germany.
I don't know either way - I would accept that it was deliberate fraud, but I always remain open in the face of the unknown. We could flip the logic around and say 'it's likely to be a JPEG compression artefact, since the square appears at EXACTLY the right spot for it appear to be fraud science' - without a full investigation I think there is an element of this that is effected by pre-existing bias.
This is by far not the only flaw of the study, @irime only touched the tip of the iceberg. You could write two equally long articles about the other issues. I am surprised how this paper went through peer-review as this. Likely, the selected referees (probably only two) were not fit enough to judge it as the methods of the study are not much related to inorganic biochemistry.
The authors wrote a whole review supporting their view and their view only while the data they actually present is rather scarce and weak even if assumed they didn't fake any results.
Fair enough - if that is the case then it should be taken as a general warning about blindly trusting the accuracy of published scientific studies, in general - as much as with this specific study and topic. I have seen many cases where studies were exposed to be nonsense and they were often the ones being used to promote the mainstream medical positions - including the pro-vaccine ones.
Yes, each time a dubious study like this is published, the reputation of scientifically obtained results and the trust into the self-regulatory apparatus of the scientific community is undermined further.
I agree and after many years of investigating all manner of frauds and criminal behaviour that weakens humanity, I can say that the old Roman Court method of asking 'Who benefits?' is valid.
Who really benefits from filling the human mind space with false information?
The benefit for researchers looking for grants is relatively small in comparison to the benefits they would gain from doing real research that benefits humanity - so if this really is a case of researcher greed/fraud just for grants, then these 'researchers' must be among the most limited of thinkers around.. Given that the risks are high for them, I question that this was the real motive.
I would very much like to see a real, independent investigation into this that is thorough and transparent - but I won't hold my breath. Like it or not, the vested interests and massive money involved in the 'scientific research' arena means that completely pure actions that are untainted by anyone within the system appear to be quite rare.