SCIENCE, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses.
The problem is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way, that the universe is governed by dependable, immutable, absolute, universal, mathematical laws of an unspecified origin.
The very notion of physical law is a theological one in the first place, a fact that makes many scientists squirm. Christians envisage God as upholding the natural order from beyond the universe, while physicists think of their laws as inhabiting an abstract transcendent realm of perfect mathematical relationships. Until science comes up with a testable theory of the laws of the universe, its claim to be free of faith is manifestly bogus.
Condensed from New York Times by PAUL DAVIES November 24, 2007