I think people are more talking about believing in scientific institutions to ensure credibility and good faith research. Not necessarily that an individual institution is credible, but more the scientific community as a whole can be relied on.
Science is absolute, however the way we interpret and understand it isn’t flawless and at the end of the day some level of belief has to be put into the fallible people behind it.
If science, as it is practised is flawed, by your own admission, what do you mean when you say that it is absolute?
The scientific laws that govern how everything functions from subatomic particles, to beehive structure, to gravity are absolute and unchanging. Our understanding of them is flawed and changes over time, but the laws themselves can’t be changed.
As far as I understand, science is a human endeavour, so I would certainly not say it is absolute, but I see what you mean.
Although I would say, my position is somewhat different, I do not see any reason to believe that even if these “laws” exist, science has at any level access to them, the “nature of reality”, if you will, “laws of the universe” are metaphysical concepts that can only ever be speculative, scientific laws are not interpretations of them, they are separate constructions.