Is there a universe? The answer may appear straightforward. There has to be a universe if scientists keep writing books with the word “universe” in the title. Public credibility of what scientists say and claim seems to know no limits. Otherwise the editors of Forbes would not have paid The New York Times large sums for a full–page advertisement in 1991. Much of that page is occupied by a picture of a pig with two wings, followed by the caption in big bold letters: “In a courtroom anything will fly if a scientist testifies to it.” Not that the advertisers felt that the credibility of scientists needed any promoting. Their aim was to make the public buy more copies of Forbes which happened to carry an exposure of “junk” scientists. The advertisers rightly assumed that the unmasking of such impostors would catch the public eye. Still greater was their confidence in their public–relation strategy riveted in science. The caption quoted above witnessed to their belief that anything said by genuine scientists enjoys built–in credibility all across the board.

One wonders what the public would think if scientists, who had put the word “universe” in the title of their books, started speaking of “universology.” With such a word they might emphasize that their subject is really that totality of things which the word “universe” presumably stands for.Such a totality, as will be seen, is most closely tied to respectable science. Yet the use of “universology” might turn into a mixed blessing or something far worse. Suffice to think of that disreputable discourse that has for some time been parading under the name “Scientology.”