To me all this hints at an emerging religion like idea that data is important and of value. I think society is going into quant/science/algo because of a mix of trend, boredom, distress, desire to control and predict more (probably caused by distressing times). And now everybody is scrutinizing every little fact, piece of text, "citing sources"; because many believe it's truer than just babbling around as most of us do.
Side note: after diving into a lot of research topics (as a semi educated newb), I realized that there's a focal point of science, above it you're ignorant, on it you know the mainstream accepted battle tested science of the day, after that you enter another domain of blur where a lot of things are "maybes" including possible refutation of accepted ideas (maybe not in physics, but medical domains for instance).
Side note: after diving into a lot of research topics (as a semi educated newb), I realized that there's a focal point of science, above it you're ignorant, on it you know the mainstream accepted battle tested science of the day, after that you enter another domain of blur where a lot of things are "maybes" including possible refutation of accepted ideas (maybe not in physics, but medical domains for instance).