> Science tells me why my sister has blue eyes (her father has blue eyes, her mother has a recessive blue-eye allele, and through random chance my sister came out with blue eyes). It tells me why cesium is much more likely to react with other elements than radon is (cesium has many more vacancies in its outer valence shell than radon does). It tells me why cactus roots are very close to the surface (to collect as much water as they can in the infrequent desert rainfalls, as the water may not sink deeper than a couple of inches). Science may not tell me the "why" of some spiritual questions (Why are we here? Why is there evil?), but I was not asking spiritual questions, I was asking scientific questions that very probably (except for the music one) could be answered with our current level of scientific knowledge.
>
> -Eric Sleator
> Mon 24 Jun A.D. 2002

Here I quote part of my response to one of your posts from two or so years back:

'The definition of a "scientific question" is something that, at least in principle, can be observed and measured. Therefore, "What is the mass of the sun?" as well as "How many cheesburgers can Spider-Boy eat?" are scientific questions, while "What does the inside of a black hole look like? (No information can escape the event horizon, therefore it is unobservable)" and "Is there a God?" are not. (Note that the adjective "unscientific" does not mean "frivoulous.")'

There's no experiment we can do to find out *why* gravity and magnetism exist; we can't measure *why* organisms desire to reproduce.

To put it another way: mathematics can tell you why one plus one is two. It follows from the properties of addition and the properties of (complex, real, integer, or natural are all sets to which one and two belong) numbers. But mathematics doesn't explain the "why's" of its axioms, so I can't tell you why addition, for example, exists, at least not mathematically.

In the same way, I can tell you scientifically why planets move the way they do; with the help of my knowledge of the properties of space and the gravitational force. But "Why does gravity exist?" is simply not a scientific question, so I must resort to philosophy, theology, or reading tea leaves to try to give an answer.

Bal"Tea leaves don't have a comics section"anthalus