The pursuit of science is just as irrational and emotional in its motives and just as intolerant in its daily practices as any of the traditional religions it has taken over from. But of course, that is not really your point. No, it's merely that some people choose to be Fools and Pseudo-intellectuals. No true intellectual would ever have anything to do with the academic community, a holdover from medieval times and generally a waste of everyone's money. But then, even scribbing away quoting each other beats being all out on the dole.
Universities keep young people off the streets while they're waiting to grow up.
The academics never grow up. Obscurantism is the academic theorist's revenge on society for having consigned him or her to relative obscurity- a way of proclaiming one's superiority in the face of one's diminished influence.