Foundation is Based on Faith and Superstition

"I neither admire nor condemn. Superstition always directs action in the absence of knowledge. The Foundation believes in the Seldon Plan, though no one in our realm can understand it, interpret its details, or use it to predict. We follow blindly out of ignorance and faith, and isn't that superstition?"

[...]

"I'm not at all sure of that. The point is, though, that we don't know how psychohistory works at all."

"I don't know how that computer works, but I know it works."

"That's because others know how it works. How would it be if no one knew how it worked? Then, if it stopped working for any reason, we would be helpless to do anything about it. And if psychohistory suddenly stopped working-"

The contradictory nature of Foundation: a planet founded on scientific principles meant to rebuild the empire in an enlightened form, but also dependent on a science that no one knows anything about and a plan that cannot be independently verified.