I don't think anything is ruined yet.
My first thought pointed in the direction of the media or fake publishers. But from my point of view, this only concerns the pupular science. Research-based science can control and verify itself very well. As long as the system works, nothing is ruined. The problem lies more in preparing scientific findings in such a way that a broad mass of people can understand them.

BTW: The use of SteemPoll was a good idea and brought the dApp back to mind.