Myth is always related to creation...

Myth is always related to creation; it tells how something came into existence (the universe, human beings), or how a pattern of behavior was established. This History is considered to be absolutely true and sacred. Surely myth arose from our need to make sense of the world as a whole, and, particularly, of our place as human beings in it. We see in myth attempts to find cause and effect explanations for the experienced world.

Early people wove basic sensory knowledge of the world into a pattern that seems reasonable. (The Mesopotamian creation myth used their knowledge of how silt deposits form land where fresh and salt water meet.) Thus, Although there are some obvious differences between the mytho-poetic approach and the scientific approach, we can also see connections. Myths are the first rungs on the ladder of discovery. Embedded within them are basic truths about both the universe and the human condition.

Science had its beginnings in ancient Greece. Although it is probably an exaggeration to think in terms of "the Greek miracle" or of "motherless Athena," as is frequently done, it is clear that about 600 B.C. a new approach to understanding the universe emerged. Although the Greeks had their myths, they went beyond the myths to search for physical explanations.

Unlike earlier cultures, they were not content to explain the universe in terms of the actions of the gods; the Greeks insisted on thinking in terms of natural processes. These protypical scientists made the remarkable assumption that an underlying rational unity and order existed within the flux and variety of the world. Nature was to be explained in terms of nature itself, not of something fundamentally beyond nature, and in impersonal terms rather than by means of personal gods and goddesses.

Science was born here, not motherless, to be sure, but nonetheless a new and distinctly different way of looking at the world. Thales (624-547 B.C.) was born in the Greek city of Miletus across the Aegean Sea from the Greek mainland. The inhabitants of this region were known as Ionians (Greeks who fled the Dorian invasion). Its location on the coast of Asia Minor provided Thales with exposure to the cultures of both the Babylonians and the Egyptians, and in fact, he visited both countries.

It was his knowledge of Babylonian astronomy that allowed him to make his famous prediction of the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 B.C.