The culture war over theism versus atheism, traditional values versus secular progressivism, and transcendent versus material reality has focused on science as the prize. Who gets to define science? Does science underwrite a naturalistic worldview? Or does it point to a nonmaterial reality?

This landmark volume takes readers to ground zero of the culture war, detailing science's unparalleled role in shaping our understanding of nature and thereby our view of reality.

Unmatched in its breadth and scope, The Nature of Nature brings together some of the most influential scientists, scholars, and public intellectuals of our dayi̮ncluding three Nobel laureatest̮o grapple with a perennial question that has been sharpened by recent advances in the natural sciences: What is the fundamental explanatory principle of the universe, inanimate matter or immaterial mind?

The answers put forward in this book have profound implications for what it means to do science, what it means to be human, and what the future holds for all of us. --Book Jacket.