I also studied a bit of philosophy, certainly enough to learn there are limits to what reason, logic or science can tell us.
Science itself is a very limited, restricted enterprise -- restricted to those questions which can be addressed by its basic assumptions, such as "naturalism" and "uniformitarianism".
So science makes no claims to "higher truth", metaphysics or super-natural understandings.
Instead, science is all about, and only about "what works", physically, materially, naturally.
Indeed, just the other day I read a scientist discussing the scientific terms "hypothesis", "theory" and "law" and suggesting those words would be more accurately understood if we replaced them with the term "pattern", since that in essence is what they all mean -- patterns detected in nature.
Bottom line: if you are looking for "definitive truth" or even just "definitive proof", then you've come to the wrong place, you won't find them in science.
So instead you must go to philosophy or theology for "truth" and to law for "proof", not science.
The only things science can offer you for certain -- yes, a thin gruel spiritually -- is that whatever it says works does indeed work, until a better explanation (a more accurate pattern) can be discovered.
So what your philosopher-friends above are telling you is just that there is a realm of understanding outside & higher than the realm of science, and from the heights of that philosophical realm they feel entitled to pass judgment on lowly science.
And of course, they are correct.
So lowly science will continue to humbly do what it's intended to do -- keep our lights on, keep our homes warm, put food on our tables, clothes on our backs, move us from point A to point B, keep us healthy, solve our natural mysteries, and let us communicate at light speeds, etc..
Yes, it's often a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it...