Yes, it's a belief/acceptance/trust/whatever you want to call it. I believe demonstrated science is fact, but that's still a belief about the world. My parents are in scientific fields, I received a science and engineering based education, and generally have faith in the scientific method as performed by most scientists.

But we DO have to convince people, we have to convince people by showing them how it works, and letting them decide that that makes sense, you can't just mandate belief as a science authoritarian.

And science is still performed by humans, and we're fallible, and our incentives aren't always good, and every time there's a public failure of the process, and every time a scientist goes on record to shill for a company's chosen viewpoint, it dings the general public's faith in science and scientific experts in general.

You arguments here are the problem. I know that you mean well and in a perfect world what you say would make sense, but when you say “science is still performed by humans” is an opportunity for the school dropout to say, “see even between them they have doubts, the earth is flat”.

What’s the better alternative? If you don’t explain how we know the earth is roughly spherical, that’s the opportunity for that person to conclude “see, they can’t even refute it; look for yourself, sheeple...”

Your understanding of science is pretty bad if you seriously believe there are no rational objections (re: long-term effects) to consuming a drug that didn't even exist a year ago.