Science and Myth: With a Response to Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design

Unrecognized and unacknowledged as the fact may be, science too has its mythology. Starting with a profound clarification of this basic issue, Wolfgang Smith goes on to explain the metaphysical significance of scientific findings relating to visual perception, the relation of neurons to mind, and much else, leading to the central chapter on Stephen Hawking's bestselling book, The Grand Design. Professor Smith first presents Hawking's case, summarizing his entire argument-in which Hawking claims that the very existence of the universe can be explained on scientific grounds-and then proceeds with a magisterial point-by-point rebuttal that leaves Hawking's thesis in tatters. The author closes with a discussion of metaphysics as a "seeing of the Real" which transcends the limitations of scientific modes of knowledge.