The authors describe the book's primary aim as being "to show how new ways of understanding past science can be used to suggest fresh approaches to the science-religion domain." [xi] The "Introduction" kicks off with some discussion of "nature," as well as what it means to "construct" or "reconstruct nature." Brooke and Cantor explain: "In the world of science, as in art, nature is apprehended through idealisation. It is not encountered, as it were, in the raw." [p.