"Just get *almost* any physicist and you couldn’t go wrong."

Well, I'll lean on the almost part of that. ;)

I agree, basic STEM competence would be a massive improvement most of the time. But how many Nobel Prize winning physicists deny climate change? Is it two or four now? Solid state electronics physicists and the like with the arrogant assumption that absurd depth in one area makes them competent to express firm opinions about non-adjacent areas.

And I still remember the bizarre case of Joi Scientific and their perpetual motion hydrogen from sea water scam. They were promising 2 and 4 times the energy out as put in, and a PhD in physics from a Canadian university signed off on this in due diligence.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/11/01/joi-scientifics-hydrogen-illusion-comes-tumbling-down/

The patents were absurd. If they had done half the things that they claimed, they would have received 2-3 Nobel Prizes for them. Instead, they were just conning credulous and desperate energy executives out of millions.