ABSTRACT
A thick description of natural science inevitably leads to theological questions and cultivates a thick description of nature, humanity, history and God. In the remainder of this introduction, the author explains the need for a thick description of science - one that takes the life and work of scientists into account - and then proceed to thicken the description by describing four preconditions that illustrate the contingency of scientific endeavour. Scientists are human beings. They need relaxation and sleep like all other humans. In the case of science-fostering societies, culture is just one of many aspects of such a thick description, and anthropology is just one of many tools of analysis. In most people’s minds and in most science-theology discussions, science consists primarily of scientific ‘facts’, scientific theories, and sometimes scientific applications. Examining the preconditions that make scientific endeavour possible is one way of thickening the description of scientific endeavour.
