>>960673
Science is a method used to understand natural laws. It seeks to create models that can effectively make accurate predictions. The power science provides comes from understanding nature as well as possible, and then using the rules and laws drawn out of nature to bend it to the will of humanity, that is, creating technology.
One thing people tend to miss when it comes to science, is that at it's core it's not a body of knowledge, a set of technologies, or an ideology, it's a way of looking at something and figuring out what inputs result in what outputs. It ignores what people say about how something works and through experimentation it finds out how that thing actually works.
Magic is about tradition and mysticism. It deals with the supernatural and obeys laws outside of normal nature. The idea of magic is that in order to truly bend the world to our will, we have to follow "The Rules" of magic, rules outside of the natural world. For someone to become good at using magic they must follow what they are taught and focus on improving themselves above all else through hard work and practice. Creating a new spell or potion is either trial and error or done through intuition, not through calculation, logic, or reason.
However, if magic follows a set of rules then science can take those rules, break them down, built predictive models and provide the scientists with a deeper understanding than the magicians who rely on intuition and tradition. If magicians are building predictive models based on experimentation already, then they're scientists in the first place, just under a different name. If you can't make accurate predictive models for magic then that magic is as useless as any other unpredictable thing. Relying on magic that breaks down when you try to apply predictive models to it is like relying on cosmic rays hitting your hard drive to give you a functioning operating system.
The only way magic can win is through plot fiat and authorial favoritism.