My buddy is studying for a PhD at a certain 985 university, and he said:

The essence of scientific research is just a bunch of people hyping concepts. A circle of people cheating the government funding together.
Many new concepts are actually just rebranded versions of stuff that was already done badly decades ago—renamed, packaged, and repackaged as something new, recycling old ideas.
So-called interdisciplinary integration just means one field can't handle itself anymore. They add in elements from another field, mix and match, and keep hyping it up.
The academic circle is a typical case of bad money driving out good. People who truly dedicate ten years to honing their craft can't get by, while those who just hype and churn out mass-produced papers are living comfortably.
Among academic peers, there's a trend of mutual disdain, and even members within the same research group can look down on each other.
Researchers should have a more appropriate name: paper writers.