Pure science seems to be primarily a hypothesis generating mechanism. "Hey look at this thing we found! It might be cool and it might also be nothing." Engineering (or applied science) is a product generating mechanism. "So we tried a bunch of stuff, and now we've got this Somewhat Reliably Working Box. It does This Action when you push a button!"
Pure science seems to be primarily a hypothesis generating mechanism.
It's pretty bad at that task. Creating a hypothesis doesn't require a rigorous scientific experiment.
Science is not particularly reliable.
And yet, we have remarkable technology, and can do medical marvels.
My tentative theory is that there's a lot of knowledge that's less formal than science in engineering, manufacturing, and the practice of medicine which makes it possible to get work done, and some fairly effective methods of filtering information that comes from science.