Determinate Science

Milton,  Paradise Lost (1674)

"Him God beholding from his prospect high, / Wherein past, present, future he beholds, / Thus to his only Son forseeing spake" (Book III, 78-79)

". . . reveal to Adam what shall come in future days / As I shall thee enlighten" (Book XI, 114-15)

Isaac Newton, principia Mathematica (1687)
". . . we offer this work as the mathematical principles of philosophy; . . . and to this end the general propositions . . .[are directed to an]. . . explication of the System of the World; for by the propositions mathematically demonstrated . . .[we]. . . derive from the celestial phenomena the forces of gravity with which bodies tend to the sun and the several planets. Then from these forces, by other propositions which are also mathematical, we deduce the motions of the planets, the comets, the moon, and the sea. I wish we could derive the rest of the phenomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles; for I am induced by many reasons to suspect that they may all depend upon certain forces by which the particles of bodies, by some causes hitherto unknown, are either mutually impelled towards each other, and cohere in regular figures, or are repelled and recede from each other. . ."
    [Three laws of motion: "inertia"; F = MA; equal and opposite reaction
    Inverse square law: force of gravity is inversely proportional to the distance between two point sources (this is why the Atkins diet works         better on the moon, but not so well on earth!)]

Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace, Essai Philosophique sur les probabilités (1814)
"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

Stephen W. Hawking, A Brief History of Time (1988)
". . . if there really is a complete unified theory, it would presumably determine our actions.  And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! . . . if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.  Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of why it is that we and the universe exist.  If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason–for then we would know the mind of God."
    [Grand Unified theory would mathematically describe the equivalence of the four fundamental universal forces: gravity, electromagnetism,     strong force (binds protons and neutrons), weak force (decay of protons to neutrons, electrons, and other particles); in other words, it             would describe the nature of the universe before the universe was.]