Science is a funnel of filters; there's no single point - not publishing, not peer review, not cite counts - that reliably distingushes true hypotheses from false ones. But taken together, it works.
How do you know that it works? How would the world look like if engineers got stuff working by tinkering instead of basing their work on the work of scientists?
How do you know that it works?
Because you're typing these words looking at a screen and the words are magically transported all around the world to appear at screens of other people...
How would the world look like
Pretty medieval, I think. I don't see why engineers would discover and develop electricity, to start with, never mind all the complicated stuff like transistors and GPS and such.
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.