I think this is about right. People tend to be very gullible. Just think of all the people who look up when you tell them that a pencil is on the cealing.
Of course, is the gullible factor in believing the scientists, or going against them? Remember that way back 500 years ago science was very different than it is today. Most of the scientific technology that we use today, would have gotten us executed 500 years ago if we had even talked about it back then.
The fact that we have advancements these days, that were not seen 500 years ago, suggests that we are doing something right. However, people are still people. Scientists often like to protect their pet projects to the tune of denouncing everything else if necessary. It's just like the Church did back 500 years ago.
500 years ago the Church was still firmly in charge and any advance that contradicted Christian dogma was shot down very effectively.
Scientists like nothing better than coming up with something new and unexpected. That's where the fame is. You don't get very far if your career consists of confirming the status-quo. The notion that scientists like to maintain the current status-quo of scientific knowledge is absurd. We don't know everything yet, in fact there's a lot we don't know. But that doesn't mean that silly notions like perpetual motion machines are being held back on purpose so we don't have to rewrite the textbooks. Some fundamental laws of physics, such as the laws of thermodynamics show no indication of even being the slightest bit inaccurate.