I think it was Bacon who said that a little thought leads us to atheism, but a little more leads us back to the concept of God.

"But he said he believed that some scientists were simply unwilling to confront the big questions religion tried to answer."

Perhaps some scientists think that it's not a good idea, and possibly even an act of hubris, to try to "answer" those big questions.

The scientist's job description requires that he or she only deal in provables - so the big questions religion tries to answer should be left to religion. Though religion (and ethics) plays an essential role in terms of moral boundaries in scientific research (cloning, stem cell, etc), it has no role to play in scientific theory.

That does not mean, of course, that scientists don't have religious beliefs - who really thinks scientists are not human beings like the rest of us, especially when contemplating the incomprehensible.

From the post:
"Science has no power to address these questions - and are they not the most important questions we ask ourselves?"

Science has no power because it deals with the natural, testable universe. Once you go supernatural and apply belief to something despite the evidence (faith), of course science becomes irrelevant.

A relevant quote:

"Where science ends, religion begins."

"Perhaps some scientists think that it's not a good idea, and possibly even an act of hubris, to try to "answer" those big questions."

This is certainly true, and no scientist can hope to answer metaphysical questions with empirical data. That's why Gould's solution is valid, in my view. However, whether the universe had a beginning in time and a limit in extant were once considered 'big' questions. Indeed, the question of the reality of atoms was once considered metaphysical.