Philosophy of science is more helpful than people give it credit for. For example, Ernst Mach basically laid a lot of groundwork for the General Theory of Relat

Philosophy of science is more helpful than people give it credit for. For example, Ernst Mach basically laid a lot of groundwork for the General Theory of Relativity with his philosophical work about the nature of physical theories. I have also personally had a couple of discussions with philosophers who worked on understanding scientific simulation and trying to approach an abstract, but accurate definition of its nature. Even just the attempt to do that forced a lot of introspection onto the scientists they talked to about their work. My takeaway was that these discussions uncovered a lot of implicit assumptions that were unknowingly made. So even if the results the philosophers wanted - a generic definition of what a scientific simulation is - might not be very useful in themselves, the mere process of getting there helped everybody develop a better understanding.