This “forging ahead” behaviour leads to a bunch of concepts that have a nice accepted definition among experts which differs from the common usage among laymen. Consider "energy", "chaos", "evolution", "complexity", .... Ignoring/forgetting/not being aware of the distinction between the common usage and the proper definition is common trap for laymen and a common tactic for pseudo-scientists with an agenda. In my opinion, scientists should invent new words instead of re-defining existing words (quantum physicists are particularly good at this: "quark" was basically a made-up word and no one will confuse "flavour" and "strangeness" with their common macroscopic usages ).

True, scientists may one day find a proper definition for "consciousness", after having studied it, but I do not expect that it will match that which is today called "consciousness" by laymen.