The influence of money really does hold back scientific progress and is often specifically used to prevent some truths from being known or to reduce the confidence we have in those truths.

Obviously it takes money to do pretty much anything in our society but it does seem like it has way more influence that is necessary. Greed seems to corrupt everything, and even though we can identify areas where things can be improved nobody seems to be wiling or able to change course.

I don't see any way to get around the fact that science is expensive. Researching the boundaries of human knowledge requires access to rare or novel materials, which requires people to invest time and effort in producing them, which of course requires money. If your research requires access to vats of liquid oxygen, or high powered lasers, or ultra pure chemicals, or 500 pure bred rats, you'll need people working full time to produce those things for you, and they need to be able to put food on their table.