Historically, the ideas that benefit humanity the most in the long term are things like capitalism, science, the criminal justice system, and (to a lesser extent) democracy. These ideas are all based on aligning individual self-interest with the interests of the society as a whole.

What does science have to do with self-interest? Making one's claims in a way that they can get falsified by others isn't normally in people self-interest.

Science appeals to sacred values of truth to prevent people from publishing data based on fake data. If it wouldn't do so and people would fake data whenever it would be in their self-interest the scientific system wouldn't get anywhere.