The problem is that science doesn't cover all the bases, so if we wait around for science then we can miss some very important aspects of life.

Science cannot "see" thoughts, dreams, hopes, trauma, insight, feelings, etc. It can sometimes measure or detect the effects of such things, but cannot actually know what they are. Science cannot explain how it feels to know something, including what it is like to be alive or aware. What many would call the greatest aspects of being alive are not knowable or explainable by science.

We have religion for these things, but religion is even more of a failure, bordering on, or completely indulging in, fantasy, delusion, absurdities, and so on.

You ask what the alternative is. I think this is for each of us to discover for ourselves. Are we more interested in finding falsifiable answers or embracing what we are as a totality?