The view that science can ultimately explain everything—can answer every legitimate question—is called scientism. Actually, few scientists embrace scientism. Most accept that there may well be questions science cannot answer.
Take moral questions, for example. Is killing always wrong? Is it morally acceptable to design a baby? Science can make new technologies possible, including weapons of mass destruction and genetic engineering. But even most scientists agree that science cannot tell us whether it is ever morally permissible to use such technologies. It seems, as the philosopher David Hume famously noted, that science ultimately reveals only what is the case; it cannot tell us what we morally ought or ought not to do.
Nor, it would seem, can science explain why the universe itself exists—why there is anything at all. Scientific explanations involve appealing to natural causes or laws. For example, if you ask a scientist why the water froze in the pipes last night, he might explain by pointing out that the temperature of the water fell below 0 degrees Celsius, and that it is a law of nature that water freezes below zero. That would explain why the water froze. But what explains why there are any natural laws or causes in the first place? What explains why there is a natural world at all? Here, it seems, science cannot provide the answers.
So, scientism is probably false. There probably are questions science can't answer, questions that extend beyond its proper domain. But then, if the credibility of what you believe is under scientific threat, why not protect it by suggesting that it, too, is something science cannot adjudicate. Indeed, accuse your critics of scientism!
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