As far as I’m concerned, Evolution was the first topic where “following the science” became some kind of mandatory political ideology. Don’t ask questions. Listen to what I’m saying — I’m a scientist, dammit! It became settled science, and if you had doubts, you were a nutcase.
Then Climate Change. Then COVID.
The older idea that science is never settled and that it’s always good to have a little doubt — that kind of science started to disappear after the Evolutionists lost the Scopes trial. Science became politicized.
A number of important “scientific” discoveries turned out to be frauds, like Piltdown Man. This article suggests that the 98% human-chimp DNA similarity is a fraud.