I really don't think so. Positivism is more a feature of how philosophers of science tried for a while to describe science than it is of actual science. And it seemed to fall out of favor decades ago. Actual science is marked by commonsense, naive realism. It has more in common with how a plumber looks for a leak than with most of the formalisms dreamed up by philosophers.
EDIT: And this is the big one that the article leaves out: the main complaint by scientists against philosophy is that it's so often wrong, especially about science. Many scientists who get curious about philosophy dip into some "philosophy of science" for obvious reasons, and don't recognize there any of the descriptions of the science that they're familiar with. And when philosophers try to apply their general principles to instruct is about how the universe works, they're even more wrong. Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy is a good introduction to this wrongness. He devotes a good deal of it to showing how Kant derived so many wrong conclusions about physics that he thought must be true because of general principles.
I agree. In my experience scientific researchers were not interested in philosophy of science and meta- questions that interested me in philosophy. They would engage in conversation but I doubt they concerned themselves with the big philosophy of science, epistemology or metaphysics questions.
They were naive realists and that's ok- it seemed helpful for getting data, interpreting results, keeping the wheels of science moving forward.
I am a biologist with a love for philosophy of science and found that both Kuhn and Lakatos discussed science in ways that were at least intelligible. Lakatos in particular described a philosophy of science that seemed to match what I have observed in practice.
I agree pretty much, especially about Kuhn, who had the advantage that he was a superb historian of science. His Structure of Scientific Revolutions is most famous, but I think his really great work was The Copernican Revolution.
Limiting themselves to the philosophy of science may be the problem. Far better to start with a history of philosophy in general. Not only does this provide a better introduction to philosophy qua philosophy, it also provides the necessary historical framework, which is essential in understanding how sciences can, and did, emerge from from the philosophic tradition.
Aside from being interesting in its own right, this keeps you from making the mistake that philosophy is simply a precursor to science, and that it can be reliably judged based on how much ended up in the realm of empiricism.
EDIT: And this is the big one that the article leaves out: the main complaint by scientists against philosophy is that it's so often wrong, especially about science. Many scientists who get curious about philosophy dip into some "philosophy of science" for obvious reasons, and don't recognize there any of the descriptions of the science that they're familiar with. And when philosophers try to apply their general principles to instruct is about how the universe works, they're even more wrong. Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy is a good introduction to this wrongness. He devotes a good deal of it to showing how Kant derived so many wrong conclusions about physics that he thought must be true because of general principles.