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.
Good questions of which I do not know the specifics. McNamara's background was with helping turn Ford around by using his statistical and analytical expertise. Later he got involved using those same techniques with the Defense Dept.
As an aside I think its a little bit dangerous to put intellectual and scientist in the same category.