[effie]

"Bell, in particular, justified it by claiming that it was unscientific to assume that experimenters didn't have free will. Okay, sure." You make some good points. I am not sure how Bell meant this, but read out of context, this is obviously false. Deterministic modelling (and therefore lack of absolute free will of the components of the system) is a long tradition of science.

[catpolice]

For various reasons, in quantum mechanics, one typically excludes the observer from the system being modeled. This is obviously problematic, especially if you're doing large scale cosmology. But that's the measurement problem for you.

Regarding the context, the quote I'm thinking of comes from one of the essays in Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, which is an enlightening read, both in terms of content and for its historical value. The issue, I think, is that the kind of 'conspiracy' implied by superdeterminist theories, wherein nature sort of guides our hand in picking certain experimental settings so as to hide information seems troubling to many scientists. See Zeilinger's quote at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism