A very good friend of mine is a Yale PhD, and currently a dean at a large university in Ohio.. he previously taught at the Naval Academy..
He'll tell you the #1 rule is "publish or die"..
if you want a career in academia, you get published.. and what peer reviewed journal, and who the peers are absolutely matters..
Im personally about 1/2 through a doctoral program myself (taking a VERY long path to completion.. between other time sucks in my life and my true hatred for academia its been a slow and painful process)..
My experience has been my dissertation panel (made up of 3x PhD's and a panel chair (also a PhD) could care less about the content of my dissertation.. At this point I've got 110+ pages of research completed, and Im about 99% convinced none of them have done anything more than a high level pass on any of the actual research.. they are FAR more focused on APA writing style, and finding comma splices than they are the validity of the research (which is one of the things that drives me absolutely nuts)..
I could likely completely make up all of the research.. if it were well documented and the correct processes were followed in generating the data, they'd never know... they are much more concerned with form over function..
While my doctoral program IS NOT in a hard science or engineering field (Im pursuing a doctorate in business), the research methodology is the same..
Needless to say, I question pretty much ALL research.. and seriously discount anyone that declares themselves a "scientist" if the title is all they have to offer..