Exactly, we could do some much better. Religious attitude is really hurting science.

Sure, there will always be room for improvement. However, I disagree with your latter point, putting ignorant, anti-science, religious, magical thinking people into power is really hurting science. Unlike religion, philosophically, Science is always open for improvement.

Edit: I had a comma party.

Repeat of study should be the bare minimum. We are in a situation where lot of underlining assumptions are false. It's hard for common people to experiment science but lets examine something that everybody can experiment daily. Nutritional science. It turns out most of the findings are complete bs or paid by special interests. Probably its not as bad elsewhere but faces similar issues presented in The Economist article.