For some reason, the fallacy of omniscience always seems to get attributed to scientists, as though they either do know everything or can, via the tools at their disposal, know everything with a bit of effort. I've often wondered where that comes from, since, as a scientist myself, I wouldn't dare to make the claim (except when doing tech support, in which case, one must make the claim that "I *know* what I'm doing, so trust me" even though that's often complete rubbish).

Science is no more than the art of observation, elevated to a status far beyond most arts due to the technology that has been developed through careful application. Still, that observation comes from imperfect people, through limited senses, with limited tools, and an unknown, but assumed to be non-ideal location. To imply that we know all there is to know given these axioms is a gross error.

Back in the day, applied science wasn't regarded much differently than magic. Today's magic is applied science, for the most part, with a bit of showmanship (as an avid reader of Terry Pratchett, I here invoke the term "Boffo" to the amusement of other Pratchett fans). And magic, by definition, is very similar to miracles: they are events that happen contrary to what our understanding would have us expect. This happens in the lab much more often than not. We simply don't call them "magic" or "miracles" (often "failures"--what does that teach us about our expectations?)

Which is all a long-winded way of saying that science doesn't preclude miracles. Rather, science tries to understand them and recreate them. To that end, there is much to learn and do.

As a scientist, I find it quite possible to believe in a being or race of beings significantly advanced to have learned to wield powers that we aren't even aware of yet. And, if they have even half as much curiosity as we do, I don't see why they wouldn't be interested in the affairs of men, especially if they see us as a more primitive them. We give a lot of grief to religious devotees of Hubbard, but some of these sci-fi writers may someday be proven to be correct in their ideas of where we'll be in a few thousand years of exponential growth in knowledge. Until then, all we can do is keep an open mind and open senses and practice science.