Isn't being able to reliably and precisely predict anything is just about building a sufficiently precise model of the system? So, if we could build a sufficiently precise model of the world we live in wouldn't it also "automate science"? In fact, some people say our universe and we ourselves actually are such a model already.

And although it may be impossible to model the whole universe with model scientists in it, I'm rather certain it is going to possible at some point to build an artificial brain that is going to be a model of an extremely smart human additionally enhanced with direct interface to huge databases and computational powers this way being able to figure out almost anything swiftly making an extremely resourceful automatic scientist.