| INTRODUCTION | 11 |
| MYTH 1: "Nothing exists until it is observed." | |
| Setting the Stage: Metaphysical Idealism or Metaphysical Realism? | 19 |
| Reality, Fantasy, and Myth | 31 |
| MYTH 2: "Nothing is known for sure." | |
| Confident Knowledge | 39 |
| How Precise Can We Get? | 45 |
| The Standard Model of Matter | 51 |
| The Danger of Modesty | 61 |
| MYTH 3: "Nothing is impossible." | |
| The Meaning of Impossible | 65 |
| Conditional Impossibilities | 67 |
| Resource Impossibilities | 70 |
| Material Impossibilities | 72 |
| Mathematical Impossibilities | 74 |
| Physical Impossibilities | 76 |
| More Physical Impossibilities | 82 |
| MYTH 4: "Whatever we think we know now is likely to be overturned in the future." | |
| The Invariance of Reality | 93 |
| Invariant Knowledge | 101 |
| MYTH 5: "Advanced civilizations of the future will have the use of forces unknown to us at present." | |
| Imagining the Future | 109 |
| Do We Know All the Forces? | 111 |
| MYTH 6: "Advanced civilizations on other planets possess great forces unavailable to us on earth." | |
| The Uniformity of the Universe | 119 |
| MYTH 7: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." | |
| The Infinity of Facts and the Finitude of Science | 123 |
| Heavenly Mysteries | 128 |
| Is There More to the Brain Than a Collection of Atoms? | 132 |
| MYTH 8: "Scientists don't have any imagination." | |
| Are New Ideas Always Resisted? | 137 |
| MYTH 9: "Scientists create theories by intuition." | |
| Truth and Beauty | 145 |
| MYTH 10: "All theories are equal." | |
| A Democracy of Science | 153 |
| MYTH l1: "All scientists are objective." | |
| Stereotypes | 161 |
| The Battle against Delusion | 164 |
| MYTH 12: "Scientists are always making false predictions." | |
| False Positives | 179 |
| False Negatives | 183 |
| MYTH 13: "All problems can be solved by computer modeling." | |
| Making Models | 189 |
| Bottom-up Models | 193 |
| Top-Down Models | 199 |
| MYTH 14: "More technology will solve all problems." | |
| Limits to Growth | 205 |
| The Inadequacy of Technological Fixes | 209 |
| Renewable Sources of Energy | 213 |
| When the Technological Fix Makes the Problem Worse | 214 |
| MYTH 15: Myths about Reductionism | |
| The Many Faces of Reductionism | 219 |
| Linearity vs. Holism | 224 |
| The Hidden Agenda | 231 |
| Negative Reductionism | 235 |
| MYTH 16: "Myths are just harmless fun and good for the soul." | |
| Good Myths | 239 |
| Bad Myths | 240 |
| INDEX | 249 |