Figuring out how nature operated was on nobody’s to-do list. Indeed, the things that provoke our curiosity today—the nature of life, and time, and consciousness, and the working of the brain—all would have seemed alien to early civilizations. Everyday survival was priority number one, behaving according to Scripture so that God wouldn’t smite you was number two, and debating issues like whether space is real never made it to the campfire agenda.
