Things being might be real in a specific point in spacetime, but that they are real is independent of time. However what Science "claims to be real"[0] is dependent of time. You can't know that the realness is the final understanding. The closest you can come to believing things are real, is that you can't think of an experiment that falsifies them. But you can't really know for sure, that falsifying is impossible. How do you solve that? I don't have that problem, because I agree with your parent, but this is what I thinks contradicts your understanding of Science.

[0] I personally don't think Science concerns itself whether things are real, only whether the result of model and realness match, but that's what we are discussing here.

This is what they teach in school.

If you read late Wittgenstein or Karl Popper, you will find that science is a useful simplification. Rorty is boring and not useful, but he kills any sort of Realism.

The 3 gigantic holes:

1. It's all language. (Wittgenstein)

2. The edges of systems do not connect with each other.

3. There are exceptions to everything.

I know that might seem a bit generic, but these are the major flaws in the philosophy of science.

I was a true believer too.

If you ever want to learn a ton about science, read Popper. He tortures himself, but he's also scientific meta.

I guess that depends on what you mean by "real". I've always taken the scientific method to be about creating theories that correctly predict experimental outcomes, which is to say that utility is primary.

I guess if/when we discover a theory of everything then we could claim "this is real/reality", but what would that even mean other than modelling reality/outcomes with 100% fidelity?