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Later, historians would think that this is the golden age of science, as easy stage, in trying to make sense of view of the world. All formula, and the establishment of after the completion of all experiments, some curious foreigners begin to ask a total of more difficult questions. Why, for example, the law of nature is what they, and not another? Beautiful laws of physics, captured so that the simple theory of the internal time, obviously can be different. What determination, from the set of all possible laws of physics, and the practical application of these laws to the real world? Without these laws come from? Apart from the question "why this universe?" And "why any universe?"           Physics and Metaphysics     Imagine a faraway planet on which a species of intelligent beings had evolved. Over time, communities of these beings developed organized societies and rudimentary technology. Somewhat later, a group of bright aliens stumbled across the basic laws of physics. Soon what we call science began to flourish. The aliens realized that with this new knowledge of the world they could improve their technology and understand more and more about the physical universe.   Some centuries passed, and the scientific project reached its culmination. The aliens understood just about everything in their environment, near and far, in terms of scientific principles. A complete "theory of everything" was formulated, involving elegant and abstract mathematical expressions that embodied all fundamental physics. To be sure, some systems remained too complex to study in detail, but the aliens were confident that all the basic principles of nature were thoroughly understood.   Much later, historians would regard this scientific golden age as the easy phase in the attempt to make sense of the world. With all the formulas established and all the experiments completed, some curious aliens began asking altogether harder questions. Why, for example, were the laws of nature what they were, rather than something else? The beautiful laws of physics, captured so succinctly within the theory of everything, clearly could have been different. What determined, from among the set of all possible laws of physics, those laws that actually applied to the real world? And where did these laws come from anyway? In addition to asking "Why this Universe?" and "Why any universe?" the aliens began wondering about where they themselves fit in. Did the emergence of life, consciousness, and understanding of the physical world signify a profound link between the nature of the universe and their own abilities to unravel the secrets of nature, or was it just a lucky fluke? Was there any deeper meaning to physical existence? How could the remarkable coherence and consistency of the natural order be explained? Might the universe be unfolding according to something like a scheme? Could concepts such as purpose and design be applied to nature as well as to alien activity? A new project was duly begun to tackle these thorny issues.   Most of the aliens were highly skeptical about the new project, not because they thought that the questions were pointless or stupid, but because they were hard — much harder than the scientific questions. In approaching them, scientists had to go beyond physics, rooted as it was in experiment and observation, into the realm of metaphysics. Progress was likely to be slow, consensus difficult. Even the best alien minds were baffled in the face of such daunting mysteries. My description of a hypothetical alien community serves the purpose of contrasting with the history of human civilization. In our case, metaphysical questions were tackled long before science arose. Early human communities constructed a wide range of mythologies, superstitions and religions to make sense of the world. To modern eyes, many of these early attempts at explaining reality look childish and fanciful. Later when the great world religions developed, more intellectual rigor was brought to bear on these fundamental questions of existence...   Then, in the seventeenth century, modern science began to flourish. Scientists had an altogether different agenda. Their methods could, with effort, lead to explanations for physical phenomena, but they were ill suited to dealing with metaphysical questions. To be sure, most early scientists were deeply religious, and they saw their scientific investigations as a way to reveal God's handiwork in the cosmos. The laws of nature that underpin the scientific enterprise they regarded as God's way of ordering the world. But principally scientists were preoccupied more with how than with why questions. Over the succeeding three hundred years, science became so successful that its theological underpinnings were largely abandoned. Many scientists began to regard the ancient questions of existence as either misguided or unanswerable, and therefore pointless. They looked back with derision at mankind's early fumbling attempts at metaphysics and presented the scientific enterprise as an antidote to such primitive musings. Once the public was properly educated in the scientific method, it was claimed, they would stop asking meaningless why questions and simply accept the physical universe, with its manifold wonders, as a brute fact.   It is fascinating to speculate whether, had human history resembled that of my hypothetical alien community, this contempt by scientists for matters metaphysical would have been so strident and entrenched. I suspect that had it been the scientists rather than the priests who first addressed the great metaphysical puzzles, then the topics concerned would have been regarded as extremely difficult but entirely respectable to contemplate. Such is scientific hubris!         — Paul Davies, in Foreword to The God Experiment: Can Science Prove the Existence of God? by Russell Stannard                       Indexes/16