I am talking about meaning and what the connection is between two otherwise randomly placed objects in the universe, the reference and a referent.
Meaning is a function of usage. Usage is people dependent, just as sentences are people dependent, but a proposition (at least to me) take the human element out of the equation. There could not have been sentences uttered by people back when there were no people, so how could there have been propositions back then when there were no sentences that express them (or people to express propositions with sentences)? Well, the referent is that which would have been expressed had there been people to express them. So, even if a proposition is what's expressed by a sentence, that doesn't necessitate sentences for there to be propositions. The explanatory definition is quick but weak.
Meaning, however, is beside the point, as meaning and referent are two different things, but there is a similar issue. The referent of a word is the object, but we speak of the referent being the object even when there were no people to use words. In other words, the referent of the word "Earth" was here long before people were around to use the word. The referent of a term is no more word dependent than a proposition is sentence dependent. We're speaking about the object, and we shouldn't let language muck that up, so it's okay to say some things that might make us apprehensive.
Oh, and science does tell us things. It's easy to get bogged down and think words must be talented little fellows to do all the things we say they do, and even when we think we're being smart and turning things topsy turvy to say that it's not words that mean, or words that refer, or words that denote and choose to give credit where credit is due, as it's the people that do things with words, it's an accepted part of language to imbue them as such.
As with words as to fields of study as well. Are we clever when we deny that science teaches us ... When we give credit not to science but to scientists? This reminds me of the insanity of discussing laws of nature