I think you're on the right track with your initial criticisms but qualia is the wrong response. Qualia is a product of making the same mistake as the platonists; it's reifying the qualities of objects into mental entities. But if you take the alternative (IMO correct) approach - leaving qualities in the world where they belong - you get a similar sort of critique because clearly reducing the world to just the aspects that scientists measure is a non-starter (note that it's not even the case that qualitative aspects can't be measured - i.e., you can identify colours using standardised samples - it's simply that these don't factor into the explanations reductionists want to privilege). This is where the whole qualia problem began: Descartes wanted to reduce the world to extended bodies and so he had to hide all the stuff that didn't fit in a vastly expanded concept of mind.