Also, the scientists with the most power were the ones doing the misleading. For whatever reason, the power structure has been such that the scientists willing to mislead are elevated to positions where they are given the opportunity to mislead the most people, and not challenged by other scientists^1 like you would expect in a community dependent on debate to find the truth.

And it's not as if this is leading to a substantial change in the community. If we're being honest, scientists with positions of power are just as likely to mislead us in the future when they believe the truth might be harmful to their funding.

1 in a substantial way

It’s not reasonable to assume all firefighters were involved in a cat rescue.

But if one says “Firefighters think cats are cute”, it certainly appears that it implies most firefighters share this opinion.