That’s part of the problem. Scientism has been gaining ground and running over Philosophy and Theology Departments for many many decades now, certainly since the start of Logical Positivism.
Logical Positivism grabbed a strong foothold in the USA as the Pragmatist movement fed into American sense via the Scottish Common Sense Realism influence..
It sounds like I’m framing it as a conspiracy and I’m not – it’s just history; the effectiveness of Engineering in the early part of the 20th century, and the flip that occurred in the 1950s when the Pure Sciences got a boost by Engineering being redefined as “Applied Science” marked a big step in this direction and it was necessary in order for the pure sciences to continue funding after WWII, when Pure Research (the R in R & D) was losing ground in popularity.
Yet, conceptually, Pure Science (Theory) was once the realm of monastics. It’s not hard to relate the many Theologians monastics who struggled over, “How many angels fit on the head of a pin?” to Universities and Government grants pouring millions for students and institutions in solving String Theory utilizing Mathematics.
Not so different at all. Both pressing questions that ultimately are just fodder for the imagination. Not that there’s anything wrong that fodder for the imagination, but the American Pragmatist in me says, “Oh, Puleeze” sometimes.