Chapter 3750: The Three Thousand and Nineteenth Echo: Science Is Another Kind of Story

Valerius looked at Lyra, truly looked at her, for the first time since she had been a child. He saw not the naive apprentice, but a woman with a keen mind and a perspective that challenged his own. ’You speak of stories,’ he said, his voice softer now. ’But what are stories, if not a way of organizing the chaos of the universe into a form we can understand? A way of finding meaning where there may be none?’

’And what is science,’ Lyra replied, ’but another kind of story? A story of observation, of hypothesis, of a search for a truth that is always just beyond our grasp. We tell stories to understand the world, and we use science to refine those stories, to make them more accurate, more true. They are not in conflict, Valerius. They are two parts of the same human quest for knowledge.’