This includes the vaunted scientific method.
You are wrong.
The scientific method is a simple set of steps. Your example has ZERO to do with that being wrong.
It has everything to do with humans who used it, then got too invested in the results and stopped using it when it was convenient to their desires.
It wasn't the method that was wrong. It was the people.
The scientific method is just a tool. Pretty simple. If you follow it, it does exactly what it is supposed to do. If you don't then it is not the tool that was the problem.
People will also say things don't exist because they haven't or can't observe them. That is not following the scientific method.
The scientific method only applies to things you can actually observe and observe with repetition.
If you can't observe it then you can't use the scientific method on it.
People will often claim science has not detected X. That is not part of the scientific method.
The scientific method only applies to what they have and can detect, not what they cannot.
So it is not the scientific method that is at fault. It is people.
Non-detection, not observing...
Not much room for that in the scientific method unless you have a hypothesis. In which case it only proves your hypothesis wrong.
At one point we couldn't see Atoms.
By the method some people use today they didn't exist because we couldn't observe them.
Yet you and I know that is not the case. They were always there.
Sadly the scientific method is useless in cases that cannot be reliable observed. That doesn't prove of disprove anything. It simply does not apply in such cases. It's like try to use a hammer as a saw.
RE: "Trust THE Science", "Do you believe in science", "The Science says...", "The science is settled" - If you know the scientific method these things should have you appalled.