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→If this is a joke, it's not that funny.
::There's a concept in math and science called "order of magnitude." That is, is an error in 10s of years, 100s of years, 1000s of years, 10000s of years, etc. A geologic timescale of 6000-ish years imply that gross errors in rock dating would be in 100s of years and within a few percent would be 10s of years. Sure, there are errors--science is always up for revising its measurements and making it more precise--but the order of magnitude of 10000 on a geologic timescale of millions of years is so incredibly small to be laughable. Even 1000000 years among 65 million years is about 2%. And for someone to dismiss all of geological dating because "there are errors" is intellectually dishonest (in my opinion, of course). And I've always found it interesting that some "views" of science are OK whereas others are "questionable." If people don't like science and technology, then they should get rid of their car, their manufactured clothes, the food that comes to the grocery store, their car and all medical care. [[User:Sterile|Sterile]] 11:20, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
::There's a concept in math and science called "order of magnitude." That is, is an error in 10s of years, 100s of years, 1000s of years, 10000s of years, etc. A geologic timescale of 6000-ish years imply that gross errors in rock dating would be in 100s of years and within a few percent would be 10s of years. Sure, there are errors--science is always up for revising its measurements and making it more precise--but the order of magnitude of 10000 on a geologic timescale of millions of years is so incredibly small to be laughable. Even 1000000 years among 65 million years is about 2%. And for someone to dismiss all of geological dating because "there are errors" is intellectually dishonest (in my opinion, of course). And I've always found it interesting that some "views" of science are OK whereas others are "questionable." If people don't like science and technology, then they should get rid of their car, their manufactured clothes, the food that comes to the grocery store, their car and all medical care. [[User:Sterile|Sterile]] 11:20, 4 May 2007 (EDT)
I think a huge misunderstanding here is that some people believe that once upon a time there was a entirely Christian world, then suddenly some sinner decided there was no God and he invented science to prove this.
This is of course complete and utter bull-you-know-what.
This is how it really went: the pursuit of knowledge (astronomy, mathematics) predate today's dominant religions by thousands of years, research has always been done on a global scale under many different religions, when it became possible to crosscheck their findings, these early researchers had established a peer-reviewing system, making these findings independent of any of the local religions, of course some of these findings conflicted with the beliefs of the religions, but while religions went and go, science continued to advance, one day, one branch of religion became dominant, but the researchers living inside its sphere of influence continued their work, as did their colleagues in other parts of the world, many of these researchers were religious themselves and saw the pursuit of knowledge as a way to better understand the universe and thus a way to come a little closer to understanding the divine, one day they found evidence pointing towards a very old Earth, soon they found more, and more, and more...
There findings were not always compatible with the creation-myths of the religions, but these creation-myths were not compatible with each other either...
Then one day a new movement within one of the 5 dominant religions emerged: it declared that the Earth was 6000 years old, this of course conflicted with the creation-myths of some of the other religions... and with the evidence the researchers had found.
In an effort to discredit their opponents, this movement claimed the researchers had their own religion and that the movement's religion was so much more important than any of the other religions ever had been, that thousands of years ago the first researchers had somehow forseen the emergence of this movement and had worked all this time to debunk the beliefs of the movement before it even existed, in the process these researchers had even developed methods to make sure that experiments always went their way, no matter who did them, all because they tried to ridicule the beliefs of a movement that would only come to existence centuries later...
BTW, thanks for that ban Philip, I feel like a full member now!
[[User:Middle Man|Middle Man]]
== thanks! ==
== thanks! ==