This is wrong, very wrong. There is a big fundamental difference between science and religion: Scientist can invent new theories and change their mind when new evidence is discovered. Religious people stick to their beliefs no matter what.

Both are not inherently true. Just commonly the case. In my experience (with Eastern polytheistic religions) a lot of "religious" people are perfectly fine with science, while conversely many people who swear by science and logic seem viscerally contemptuous of anything not falling within the bounds of their worldview. No doubt religion by and large is detrimental (at least at this point in human evolution) and it has a huge amount of blood on its hands, but the spiritual/mystical core of most religions (admittedly almost completely ignored by the vast majority of its adherents since it is obtuse, ethereal and hard to pursue; not as easy as following orders and conforming) seems to be just as much a way of seeking after the ultimately nature of reality as is science. Just because it is not testable and repeateable like the scientific method doesn't mean it is false, since we still don't know the ultimate nature of reality. So it is good if both sides keep an open mind.

But, limiting debates to the observable, testable (falsifiable) and repeatable subset has helped us improve our understanding of the nature of physical reality.

Wouldn't you agree?

But it's not very helpful in understanding the nature of ourselves, which is where science remains a weak tool.

It's a mistake to conclude science is a weak tool just because it produces less certain results in the social sciences. "Weak" is a relative measure, so science is only a weak tool if you can actually demonstrate the existence of a much better tool.

It may be a weak tool, but it's the only tool that we know actually works.

Also, as science helps us advance technology it becomes a continuously stronger tool.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Max Planck himself said:

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." [1]

[1] - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck

As a human institution, science won't ever be perfect. The fundamental notions of science (reduction, documentation, reproducibility, etc) are drastically different from the fundamental notions of religion.

I think the word "science" is too general for this discussion. You're talking about the scientific method, which is a rigorous process for building consistent models of our shared experience. Godel's theorem suggests that we might never be able to complete any of these models, but the method has still lead to amazing new ways of understanding the universe.

If we're talking about the hand-wavey mysticism of Michio Kaku or Deepak Chopra, or researchers who have decided to believe a particular unfalsifiable interpretation of QM, and will not be convinced otherwise, that stuff is closer to what I would call religion.

In that reduced way science becomes a study of theory within theory, derived logical connections. Once you assume a logical framework you're out of the hypothesis/test routine completely. I don't think that's a fair thing to do in comparison. Where things start out matters.

I might not understand your point, but are you basically saying that not all science requires math? To be fair, I've been thinking of physics in particular here.

Science isn't a religion but scientists can be zealots. The scientific principle is the antithesis of religion but scientists can be irrational like any other human.

The good thing about the modern era is that even when institutional biases may momentarily prevent a theory from gaining mainstream recognition at least it will be preserved as part of the body of scientific knowledge so future generations can rediscover it.

> Science isn't a religion

Science might not be, but there are plenty of Scientismists out there.

Scientism is just a catchy phrase for blind faith.

Most "scientism" I see in the wild is just people who were already indoctrinated into magical thinking treating "science" the same way they previously treated religious dogma.

It's irrelevant to science the same way astrology is irrelevant to astronomy. It's cargo cult "science"-iness.

Science becomes religion when scientists ignore empirical evidence in front of them because their textbooks or theories point out that that evidence cannot possibly exist, and then proceed to call those presenting that evidence as unscientific or irreligious.

I wonder, why so you think so? Why do you call an endeavor that seeks to provide an explanation and a model of reality consistent with empirical observatkons a religion, when it's precisely the opposite? Just because we are reaching strange and difficult conclusions that you may not like, that's no reason to dismiss it as zealotry.