the only reason why Python replaced Perl, is that Python was pushed by Google
Holy revisionist history, Batman!
I don't want to defend either Google or Python, but the fact is, Perl was balls deep in the grave years before Python's ascendancy. The Perl 6 debacle killed all the momentum left in the community, which already wasn't much, because Perl 5 was being eaten alive by PHP, because PHP was easier for half-asleep teenagers to get started with. Then word got around that it was bad for security, and PHP lost to Ruby, which ruled the world for about a week until Zed Shaw posted his "ghetto" rant.
The Python people hated Ruby a lot more than they ever hated Perl. Ruby and Python were close rivals. They started getting widespread attention at the same time. They had similar strengths, like REPLs, and similar problems, like poor performance and inconsistent stdlibs. Ruby was "fun" so the pythonistas all decided they were going to be "not fun" and act professional. They got in bed with the Fortran people early on and started building tools for scientific computing. (Actually, where was Lua all this time? It was designed to be complementary to Fortran, but those blockheads forgot it existed.) They were really well prepared to take Ruby out at the knees as soon as the drama started happening. Maybe they even instigated some of it. I seem to recall Zed Shaw endorsing Python right away.
I worked with Perl for a while. The "write-only language" thing was an inside joke as much as anything else. When I heard it used as an insult, it usually came from C programmers (throwing stones in glass houses as usual). They preferred Bash to Perl, especially once it started adding more features, but they still preferred Perl to Python for a long time and were constantly starting arguments about whether Python "deserved" to be part of Linux distros.