[arjie]

It’s an adaptive system. Once you know that politicians can be influenced by an appropriately placed expert you can wield political power through the expert. At that point the logical incentive is for the politician to cut out the middleman and be directly influenced by you.

After all, the expert can manufacture a snail-darter on demand. Why wait for that manufactured science when you can simply deliver the outcome yourself?

To try to go back to the past is like thinking that the UK would rule the seas once more if only they returned to building sail ships of wood to do battle with.