This is what you get when you introduce market mechanisms into research institutions. If the researchers have to solicit external sources of finance, they effectively become (part time) sales people.
As the financial sources are by definition external, the people behind them have no clue about the actual research. So what can the researchers do to close the sale, if the actual science won't work? They necessarily have to tell stories.
I agree with this 100%. I'm a data scientist that works with large demographics and just putting data out there to people does nothing. You have to tell a story around it and give it context for it to make any sense to most people. The most important part is sticking to objective statements about the data and then justifying the actions that are a result of new data.
Sometimes you have to spend resources before you can reach a conclusion, which is is a risk. People are always looking for low risk/high reward investments, and when they're unable to evaluate an investment for themselves they incentivize optimistic proposals.
As the financial sources are by definition external, the people behind them have no clue about the actual research. So what can the researchers do to close the sale, if the actual science won't work? They necessarily have to tell stories.