Ridley has a keen sense of the role, strengths, and limits of science as a branch of human knowledge. This work circumscribes science and seeks to be a contribution towards shedding some megalomaniacal ambitions of scientism, which in the tradition of Comte, raises science to the highest order of knowledge. He accomplishes this on many levels--explaining what the grand Theory of Everything that physicists dream exactly would constitute [not much really, just a mapping out of atomic particles, not the meaning of existence], discussing the relation of magic and science, examining the meta-science [basically, epistemology] that undergirds and makes possible empirical science qua science as usually understood, and the relation of science to life's mysteries, such as the mind, art, and morality.

Ridley shows a good knowledge of both his own scientific discipline [Physics] and contemporary philosophy and integerates the two well, a rare quality.