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yep - i think we agree on these issues more or less. the search for "meaning" will not play out in the realm of science. i had conversation with a fellow engineer type a while back, along the lines of "science is the pursuit of how things happen, philosophy/religion is the pursuit of why they happen..." which folds in nicely with the viewpoint of a professor i knew a while back who's methodology was if you want to drill in on details, ask how. if you want to go to the macroscopic viewpoint, ask why.
i think that a lot of ground could be covered by many followers of various theistic approaches if they would loosen their interpretations a bit. but that's an entirely different situation, i suppose. i'm not sure that different disciplines really have a fundamentally different conception on the standards of proof, per se...but more that the "experiments" are vastly different, so the ways in which the standards of proof may be met are different. i think asaris referenced history vs. physical science...i think the "scientific method" still lies at the heart of these approaches, only that the way one applies the same logical thought pattern must be adaptable to the types of data present.
as for science and the type of spirituality that you're talking about, i think, merging as t->inf....well, i'd say that's what most religions these days are the result of. t sort of went to a practical limit of infinity...and their scientific, sociological, spiritual and ethical knowledge all got wrapped up in one big enchilada. i think that's partially why different theist brands have this trouble with new science...the cultural knowledge of previous civilizations gave birth to these various religions, and to be flexible on the parts that pertain to the areas we've made huge advances in (primarily technology / science in the post Enlightenment era) is difficult when that might creep over in the areas where we haven't made a lot of significant progress, ie. why are we here and what the fuck are we supposed to be doing...and what happens when we're done, anyways? so you get people clamoring for proof of the aspects that are easily contradicted by modern knowledge, and that creeps in on the rest because the construction of the religion doesn't allow the aspects to be easily cleaved...or so it seems to me.
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