Would you prefer "non-Cliffordness"?

Does using words that are more of a mouthful make scientist more credible?

> Is it possible to take any scientist talking about something they term as magic seriously?

Obviously. Because the fact that they use this word for something modernly scientific means that its meaning is as far from the commonfolk meaning of the word as possible. Magic doesn't mean anything sensible yet. So it's basically free real estate for something physical, especially something very foundational.