I've been poking at the question of to what extent computers could help people do science, beyond the usual calculation and visualization which is already being done.

I'm not getting very far-- a lot of the most interesting stuff seems like getting meaning out of noise.

However, could computers check to make sure that the use of statistics isn't too awful? Or is finding out whether what's deduced follows from the raw data too much like doing natural language? What about finding similar patterns in different fields? Possibly promising areas which haven't been explored?

Not exactly sure, to be honest, though your estimate sounds correct. What matters is that I deem it possible in a non-trivial sense; and more importantly, that we can currently identify rough boundaries of ideal mechanized science, and can categorize much of existing science as being definitely in or out.