[goatsneez]

I think the point of the writing in this article (and many similar ones out-there, including dozens upon dozens of published ones from academics themselves) is to point out a systemic problem that has emerged from the complexity of our civilization which is increasingly dependent on the institution of science to provide facts (and also "facts" used for political/policy advertisement) on plethora of diverse issues. The values you try to defend in your post are real but are not under question or even in the spotlight.

The bureaucratization of science, the science institutions metrics and evaluation, the iron-triangle (written about 2-3 decades by academics) all are valid issues which now seep out to the public. If you want more "posh" articles see https://innovationfrontier.org/fix-science-dont-just-fund-it... or here (science is self-destructing...) https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science

In short, there is no need to "burn it all down", but denying or ignoring what appears nowadays even to an outsider(s) (for the article is clearly by a non-academic and it is not exactly just an outlier) obvious means that discussion and thinking about improvements is in place. Having a debate, well, on HN is not really impact-full... but regardless.