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I'm enjoying being a spectator to this debate so much, I think I'll join in. My own view is that the ability to do science is hardwired in our brains, and as such, may possibly be the result of evolutionary pressures. If are to assume that the neo-Darwinist approach to cognitive psychology is true (as I do) then we do NOT possess a general all-purpose brain which is capable of deducing or understanding everything. Instead, we have evolved very specific mental structures (or mental algorithims, or what ever term you prefer) which have proved useful to our survival and sustenance, and which through some way, some combination of adaptative and exaptationist processes, have been useful beyond their original purpose. And yet, the limitations are still there; there are certain phenomena which are minds are unable to ever completely discern or explain.

If this seems like an unduly pessimistic expression of biological determinism and fatalism, then allow me to conclude on an upbeat note. The biological apparatus allowing us to science encompasses our perceptual faculties as well as our cognitive ones. We have been able to move beyond the innate limitations of our five senses through the instruments we have devised-everything from telescopes to microscopes, thermometers to chromatographs, radio telescopes to bubble chambers. We may be able to similarly go beyond the biological limitations of our masses of gray mush by developing computers and other artifical intelligence systems capable of doing science, rather than simply serving as assistants. How this may be done-well, that's an answer which is beyond me.

Albert Einstein wrote an article for the 1926 edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica explaining in simple terms space and time. It begans:

"All our thoughts and concepts are called up by sense-experiences and have a meaning only in reference to these sense-experiences. On the other hand, however, they are products of the spontaneous activity of our minds; they are thus in no wise logical consequences of the contents of these sense experiences. If, therefore, we wish to grasp the essence of a complex of abstract notions we must for the one part investigate the mutual relationships between the concepts and the assertions made about them; for the other, we must investigate how they are related to the experiences."