>>13924109At some point, your rulers realized that controlling the population through religious or ideological indoctrination isn't flexible enough, because it forces them to frame their opportunistic schemes in terms of a relatively fixed set of values and ideals, and besides, idealism has fallen out of fashion -- modern man likes to think of himself as rational and pragmatic; however, the basics of human psychology haven't changed much, and people will still defer to whatever bogus authority society props up, so what do you do? You find scientists whose political beliefs and/or research are compatible with your bottom line and give them a megaphone. Now you don't need to pander to any ideals, you don't need to worry about maintaining the appearance of a consistent position, you don't have to take responsibility for the negative consequences of your sociopolitical machinations: you were simply following the science, and science is allowed to be wrong and change its mind on the daily.
