I agree with your ideals here, I'm just not sure that's how things do or can work in practice.
Think of it like...Okay a screenplay. One would think that the way in which a film was presented, wouldn't matter if the content of the film was good. However, when you consider how humans absorb stories you realize that good content will never get to them if it isn't presented in a very specific structured way.
Similarly, we would need to change the way our political system functions to achieve that kind of position for scientists. There's too much misinformation out there and it's too easy to find some presumed "expert" to back your way of doing things.
That's why I brought up econ actually. No matter how scientific the field gets, it's too heavily politicized to be of much good.
Oh! Agent, found a guy who doesn't care about Happiness:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_SchopenhauerThough from what I've read, I don't particularly like his philosophy - but you might.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0zmfNx7OM4