In science, not God we trust is the future America in which Jordan McCarty, a professor of seventeenth-century English literature, has just lost his job and is losing his eighteen-year-old son, Brenton, to a "God gang" as belief in the Bible is now against the law. Blessed with a photographic memory but in need of a job, Jordan joins the world of biotechnology kingpin and former colleague Dr. Richard Dickson, who offers him a position as a technology writer at his new life span extension company, BioSpan.

After discovering how DNA preserves our thoughts and memories, Dr. Dickson partners with a Las Vegas titan, Armando Bigolosi, and a modern-day biohacker, Daulton Hayes, who has invented a technology capable of translating the genetic language of DNA into the English language, thereby turning flesh into words. With unlimited funding, these three men join forces and aim to apply this technology to translate the written words of great writers of the past into the DNA of their thoughts. They embark on an audacious plan to restore the minds of these writers, bring their souls back to life, and usher in the age of edutainment in Las Vegas.

Having memorized the entire contents of the Bible to understand what has led his son astray from science, Jordan develops a belief in God, leading to a climatic confrontation with Dr. Dickson, when Dickson announces that he has translated the entire contents of the Bible into DNA and plans to replace his thoughts with God's thoughts.