In general, people believe that if we want our children to be good in and relate well to science, or to enable at least a few of them eventually to become scientists themselves, we may need to be clear about what science is and the nature of its method. Individuals can then wield the method of science, making them scientists. This way of thinking is firmly committed to the view that science is what a scientist does, times the number of scientists that there are. Thus we might hope to foster in children certain behaviours that are conformable to "the method of science". If this is the case, then we would expect every student who takes science to understand and be good in science. However, this is not the case. A contention of the paper is that the main enabling conditions for the ignition of science are in fact writing and literacy. The implication is that a culture that is well used to literacy from past generations will have an advantage vis-à-vis school science learning as compared to a culture that remains significantly oral, and has had very few generations to adjust to the range of possible uses that writing opens. This could possibly be a causal explanation of differences in science achievement levels between iTaukei (Indigenous Fijian) and Indo-Fijian students at school.