Scientists screaming at philosophers is like grown up kids screaming at their parents.

Virtually every science was done by philosophers first, when they made it relatively reliable (read: easy), it became a separate discipline.

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) February 23, 2021

I wouldn’t say “easy.” That’s not fair in many ways, though there is something to that idea. However, I think philosophy and philosophers make a problem space tractable, something that can be thought about coordinatedly at all, and then scientists take over. Of course this is only one branch of philosophy, and there are others that are just as vital.

There is also the output side. Once scientists “know” something, philosophers are needed for contextualizing what is known, why it is known, how society can deal with this knowledge, and how it relates to the rest of knowledge. This is called epistemology, and is as crucial as (for lack of a better term) speculative philosophy.

So, no, I wouldn’t say science is ever “easy,” but without philosophy it’s not much at all nonetheless.