I read a while ago an interesting hypothesis, and it went something like this:
Without a society intimately acquainted with the idea of monotheism, people would not have started studying the laws of physics.
The argument was essentially, in a polytheistic society people would not believe in any universal laws. If Zeus were to declare that no particle may travel beyond the speed of light, there would be nothing stopping Aphrodite from creating horneons that travel at 1.3c. The physical universe is not bound by absolute laws, but rather is an expression resulting from the compromise of many different systems.
But in monotheism, the universe is viewed differently. It is viewed as the expression of a single system based on a single set of rules laid down by a single entity. No conflict means that these laws are consistant, and only if they are consistant would they be worth investigating.
That is the argument. A few points, if I may:
1) I get what the argument is saying, and agree that it is plausible. I'm not 100% sold on it though
2) Studying the laws of physics is a distinct statment from studying sciences. It is possible to pursue biology, chemistry, engineering, even physics like mechanics, without investigating the existance or properties of universal laws.
3) The idea that there are physical laws is not necessarily an inevitable conclusion. Indeed, there is no proof that the laws of physics as we know them are in fact universal. We operated without the idea for a long time quite successfully. The idea of universal laws has been helpful in the sciences but then so have computers - doesn't mean each and every possible science-minded society is guaranteed to discover them.
4) Atheist scientists would not believe in a polytheism, but the way they see the universe would still have been shaped by a society that does. Freedom from the belief does not guarantee freedom from the bias.
Discuss.