As a hypothetical example: "excessive deference to science" might occur when you have a global pandemic, and a government official says, "I am following the science. Therefore an attack on me is an attack on science." This official asks for exciting new emergency powers, and uses them to push through measures which coincidentally achieve policy goals he couldn't achieve before the pandemic. In the name of Science™, he tries to silence any dissent that says his measures are ill-suited to mitigate the pandemic, or unduly burdensome; maybe he even has an excuse to ban opposition political parties, perhaps because they are antivax (eww — but still) or just because they are questioning his power grabs.

(This is a hypothetical government official. Any resemblance to real-world government officials is coincidental.)