Passage:

A historian of science challenges the claim that early scientific academies flourished because they were insulated from politics. According to the historian, the academies were political in the most literal sense: they depended on patronage, negotiated privileges, and competed with rival institutions for legitimacy. Yet, the historian argues, this dependence did not simply corrupt inquiry; it also created incentives for public demonstration. To secure continued support, researchers staged experiments that could be witnessed, repeated, and narrated in ways that signaled reliability to nonexperts. Over time, the need to persuade patrons helped standardize methods for reporting results, including detailed descriptions of instruments and procedures. The historian concludes that the academies did not succeed by avoiding politics but by converting political pressures into practices that strengthened the public credibility of their work.

Which choice best states the central idea of the passage?