Well, I can agree with you on that. I think the conflict here arises from that the phrase: "the core of science" is rather ambiguous. You can't really discern if it means "How science is conducted" or "For what reason is science conducted". The thing driving people to practice science is...
The scientific method is the methodology and means by which we can get to better and better models and explanations of the universe. People don't practice science because of the scientific method but rather it is the tool with which they practice it. Perhaps I should've used the word "aim"...
This is not entirely true. Science does attempt to tell things about the reality (even the "mere" prediction of things that will happen is a major thing science tells about the reality) and in my opinion if science was all about predicting what will happen within some accuracy not a lot of...