“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” - Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)
Belief is not a synonym for faith.
Faith implies belief without requiring any evidence. But belief can be conditional on evidence.
(That didn’t turn out to be a good definition, but not because of the “belief” part.)
It's not fatted calves, but we do sacrifice some money to the quantum folks so they can break our enemies' encryption locks ... in like 25 years ...
Most people will never understand the direct evidence of even relatively mundane science, and almost everyone is incapable of understanding the direct evidence of the cutting edge.[0] and its implications, ergo in lieu of understanding they must substitute belief. Where science policy/communication fails here is in producing a 'believable' system, with adequate consistency and storytelling for persons who will only ever understand by analogy.
[0]Regular people don't know what an integral is. The intelligent, educated, and motivated don't have the bandwidth to really understand more than a smattering topics deeply.
Belief can be informed by evidence or not. It simply means acceptance or confidence that something is true. You can have faith in the available evidence, or faith in the absence of evidence.
(*Or “convincing evidence.”)
Those with faith have proof or evidence that can be used to demonstrate or to back up that faith. It's not blind.