I think you’re on the right track with your initial criticisms but qualia is the wrong response. Qualia is a product of making the same mistake as the platonists; it’s reifying the qualities of objects into mental entities. But if you take the alternative (IMO correct) approach—leaving qualities in the world where they belong—you get a similar sort of critique because clearly reducing the world to just the aspects that scientists measure is a non-starter (note that it’s not even the case that qualitative aspects can’t be measured—i.e., you can identify colours using standardised samples—it’s simply that these don’t factor into the explanations reductionists want to privilege). This is where the whole qualia problem began: Descartes wanted to reduce the world to extended bodies and so he had to hide all the stuff that didn’t fit in a vastly expanded concept of mind.
I think you’re on the right track with your initial criticisms but qualia is the wrong response. Qualia is a product of making the same mistake as the platonists; it’s reifying the qualities of objects into mental entities. But if you take the alternative (IMO correct) approach—leaving qualities in the world where they belong—you get a similar sort of critique because clearly reducing the world to just the aspects that scientists measure is a non-starter (note that it’s not even the case that qualitative aspects can’t be measured—i.e., you can identify colours using standardised samples—it’s simply that these don’t factor into the explanations reductionists want to privilege). This is where the whole qualia problem began: Descartes wanted to reduce the world to extended bodies and so he had to hide all the stuff that didn’t fit in a vastly expanded concept of mind.