That researcher has a personal conviction that the model isn't wrong. That is spurring them to spend the years and decades necessary to assemble the experiment

That researcher has a personal conviction that the model isn't wrong. That is spurring them to spend the years and decades necessary to assemble the experimental evidence to test the model. Either it'll turn out to be wrong or right in the end, but the conviction is what gives that individual researcher the impetus to keep scratching at the problem for a good chunk of their life. You shouldn't really roll your eyes at that. They're ultimately doing all the work which will prove it right or wrong. They might wind up not liking the answer they get, but the conviction is necessary to get them there because human emotions are weird.