I agree with you here. It would be crazy for a Christian to say that Science would be the only way to know things.
However, this is precisely the kind of conviction that many scientists (non Christian) seem to have. And they have taken this conviction to the general public and campaigned for it. There seems to be little difference between MN and and philosophical naturalism in the viewpoint of atleast some (very popular) scientists. And there has been very little backlash from the scientific community for consistently misusing science to back religious views like atheism.
In practise, I don’t think there is as strong a line drawn between MN and PN among scientists. For example, most of the athiest Scientists we have here hold to PN, and they don’t seem to have any of the qualms you do about mixing the two.
I agree here also.
I am not so sure of this. How do you do OOL research unless you are convinced that natural explanations exist. There is a strong faith based part to MN.
And it has clear metaphysical/theological implications.