It's an equivocation between two senses: science as the brave "belief in the ignorance of experts", "you yourself are the easiest to fool" idea on the one hand and what we should rather call academia or academic science community and the associated rituals, connections, rules, prestige etc. on the other. And third, the consensus body of knowledge in textbooks and schools.

Much of the 3 was created using approx 1, before 2 really. 3 is the original source of respect for the masses, the landmark results, the household names, Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, Einstein etc. But then come along 2 with their little games and citations and positions and visa requirements and recommendations, CVs, conferences, journals, publish or perish, the push for sexy results for PR announcements and the next grant, p hacking, tyrant supervisors who only care about having a paper at any cost, massaging the data, not speaking up because if funding dries up for the institute, the newly birthed PhD student may lose her job and be deported, the big name prof must be worshipped etc. They co-opt the reputation accrued by the giants, and then if anyone has any criticism, they are scolded for being against the ideal 1, the noble endeavor and ethos and upright honest methodology. In many cases people good at playing game 2 need quite different skillsets than people who'd be good at 1.

But who will produce the next big item for category 3?

Is 2 a good mechanism to encourage practicing 1 to get to 3? I don't think so.