  It is perhaps dangerous to defend science using the sort of naïve methodology presently described in scientific method. That methodology is, at the least, dubious. Better to point out that science is grounded in a shared, and powerful, understanding that allows us to manipulate the world in ways that no other enterprise can. The debate between post modernists and empiricists (for want of better terms) is ongoing, and it is not appropriate to pretend here that it is finished. Better to simply refer the reader to the relevant articles.  