If you look at the underlying problem in the story is that bureaucracy controls science and personalities control science. Not facts.
If you aren’t popular then you won’t get toys and money. So go with the popular theories if you want funding.
There’s an Issac Asimov short story, “The Dead Past” which eerily predicted this state of affairs from the trend of bureaucratic controlled science in the 1950s. Google the term “intellectual anarchy” to find the story.
You are 100% correct. This is one of the many things that the liberals have done that needs to be reversed when the opportunity presents itself. But you have to be ready for said opportunity when it comes, or said opportunity passes you by.