Coopting is not new..but you have to keep your principles when you do it.
I am very opposed to a new middle ages scenario developing
If anything the anti-scientists are more like Marxists thany anything else we've seen recently...think Mao's flowers blooming and the overthrow of the educated in Stalin's Russia.
And Hitler's policies ran a few brilliant scientists out of Germany just before an important war (just when he needed them the most).