> Your questions ask "why" things are the way
> they are, and I bet everybody would like to
> know the answers to them. I know I would.
> Unfortunately, science deals more with
> the "how" of the ways of the universe: How
> gravity and reproduction work, for example,
> instead of why.

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