Alright let’s talk some science. I am a primary source. I know what I know based on observation and experience over years of interacting with hundreds of scientists, as well as my critical thinking about their/my education. You in demanding a source are requesting that I provide some written documentation of someone else’s opinion about the issue (after all we are not talking about something quantifiable here). This source would invariably be an article or study underpinned by basically the same base epistemological theory: ‘just trust me bro.’ This is obviously stupid to me especially as my ideas are my own about this topic and not derivative of someone else’s ideas. I suspect that you are demanding a source in bad faith.

I think you forgot that we are talking about politics here and science which is directly interesting to the political actors. 

The decent thing about scientists is that they aren’t quite this naive, and they don’t worship science or scientists (the ones who sell this to you are charlatans or ‘Science educators’). Unfortunately, the truth about scientists is they are just people and generally docile ones at that. I literally do not talk to people irl in my daily life who are not scientists. There’s a great deal of specialization and conformity, which are necessary to achieve competence and maintain reputation in a narrow research area, but this comes with costs that makes these people as a class unsuitable to be a target of public faith.

University labs are the scientists who are totally dependent on funding agencies.  It is highly centralized! Especially if you break it down by field/research area. The way it works is that the scientists are beholden to every agency rather than none of them because they cannot offend any without losing critical funding to pay their students, and university fees. One cannot simply go get NSF funding to replace funding lost by pissing off the NIH. Nor can you piss off the NIH and continue as you were in the good graces of the school because then you become everyone’s problem.

As a scientist, I can tell you that the generally accepted theory is what is trendy with the funding agencies.