It is childish to judge the value of a scientist work on their personality, popularity or even dress sense.
It is the strength/logic of their words and the resilience of their ideas under cross examination that in a normal environment lead to useful ideas and sensible next step. Vetted in this way the idea even if hard to believe and expensive will carry more weight.
Universities are publicly funded and should resist political, ideological and financial pressure so as to allow an open discussion even if it calls some of their findings to task.
In the real world, scientifically backed proposals are thoroughly checked with serious red team/blue team debate. The board and the CEO seldom understand all but the basic science/engineering but will demand a detailed check by the best nay-sayer before green lighting the project. The champion of the project will not like it but I can tell you from experience you do a much better job torture testing your own findings before floating it to the board and facing, as the nickname goes, 'Dr. Death'.
Universities need to grow up. Researchers asking for 100s of millions of research fund need to grow up.
