you missed something important

> dogmatic belief in the supremacy of rationalism and materialism

good science absolutely must take a rationalist and materialist view. however, the needs of good science are not necessarily the supreme values which to make any and all decisions.

What else do you base decisions on?

Lots of things! Because I'm not actually a practicing researcher. And the set of practicing researchers I've known is, perhaps not so oddly, disjoint with the set of dogmatic scientific positivists I've known. No one has a better grasp of the vast difference between ideal science and real science than someone who actually does science for a living.

Can you name some of those lots of things?

Science can tell you how things work and how to achieve particular results. It can't tell you what is important, because that's fundamentally a question of human values.