Science in its true sense is plunging "beneath the material surface of things, " to find "the spiritual cause," to use words of Mary Baker Eddy's. See Science and Health, p. 313. It's using your inherent spiritual sense to discover the actual cause of all things, and that involves expressing intelligence, insight, inspiration.
Our project is a good example of using ideas instead of money to discover something new. It was accomplished mostly through inspiration, and was supported by people who caught this inspiration themselves, and donated their equipment, time, and computer expertise. Over a dozen scientists around the globe worked on the project. Whether there's a planet there or not, we've shown that Earthlike planets could be detected today.
It is incorrect to believe that one cannot do new thinking without big funding. We used mostly nineteenth century equipment—the Crossley telescope at Lick Observatory—to do a twenty-first-century research project. We linked an old telescope with a modern electronic camera, chose the right target star system, used a computer to generate a model based on all possible planetary transits, and then compared the model with observational data to find our candidate Earths.
