One of the most failed "experiments" of science and politics was Robert McNamara as U.S. Secretary of Defense under JFK. He used a lot of scientific methods to evaluate his political decisions with war and intervention. All of his evaluations pointed out that the U.S. should intervene in Vietnam and look how that turned out. In politics there are too many variables at play. Perhaps politics is good for the "intellectual" but not for the scientist.
As an aside I think its a little bit dangerous to put intellectual and scientist in the same category.
As an aside I think its a little bit dangerous to put intellectual and scientist in the same category.