I think it must have started sometime when Darwin and his fans battled creationists and indoctrinated the society (scientific or not) with naturalism (not to confuse with naturism, which I've been promoting recently!
). They funded "Nature" specifically for that purpose. They promoted progressive science and philosophy, but at the same time they killed scientific debate (muzzling inconspicuous truths delivered by guys like William Jennings Bryan, whom I quoted in your bankster faces some time ago
). Then it went all the wrong way: the journal neglected the science part more and more, promoting nepotism and cliques. I remember it hurt to read some Nature articles from my area of expertise (in physics) and also to watch really good research struggling to get through to their pages and "make impact". Anyway, good change.