PDFs are being forged everyday, mostly for financial incentives. The reason it rarely happens with scienific papers (as seems to be a particular concern of the author) is because it makes not much practical sense.
1. General public don't read papers.
2. General public have lowered trust to them.
3. It's not impossible to produce and publish genuine paper with forged data.
broken-kebab · · focus · HN ↗
1. General public don't read papers.
2. General public have lowered trust to them.
3. It's not impossible to produce and publish genuine paper with forged data.