On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 12:01:42PM -0600, Reggie Bautista wrote:

> Most scientists believes that the universe is about 12 billion years
> old (give or take five billion or so).  There are some scientists that
> believe it's much older, some that believe it's much younger.

These are not "scientific 'beliefs' " nor "scientific 'truths' ".
They are interpretations of data (or theories, if you prefer) which
are subject to revision based on further experimental evidence. All
scientists are willing to modify or abandon theories if sufficient
experimental evidence is demonstrated.

> There are some religious folk that believe the universe is only a few
> thousand years old.  There are others that believe that Genesis is a
> poem and was never meant to be a literal description of what happened,
> but rather a figurative, symbolic one.

These are indeed beliefs, in the sense that they cannot be
experimentally verified or disproved within their context. As beliefs,
they are orthogonal to science, which relies on experiment to test all
scientific knowledge and does not attempt to explain phenomenon that
have no possibility of experimental investigation.


-- 
"Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>       http://www.erikreuter.com/

Reply via email to