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Can you BELIEVE people once thought the beginning of everything was 6,000 years ago? Thank goodness every sane person is unequivocally certain that it was actually 14 billion years now!


Well, the difference is that "6000" is not science, while "14 billion" is. And no, there is no need to "believe in science" (although many indeed do); the idea that "scientific fact" (let alone a hypothesis) is something that is "unequivocally certain" is certainly wrong.


6,000 was the guess of technology 200 years ago. They had their reasons. Today 14 billion is the technology of our time. We have our reasons. My point is that technological progression seems to support the idea that 14 billion will seem like a silly number 200 years from now, in a similar way.


If it does, then 200 years from now I think there will still be holdouts for 6000 years, but there probably won't be any for 14 billion.


Who can say? But based on my experience of human nature I think there will be.


For sure. And that underscores the probabilities that are either are true.


Funny thing that this a misconception (popularized by Hawking). The Big Bang is not "the beginning of everything" (as Hawking used to say), just an event in the past, that we are fairly certain that it happened, and when it happened.


Certain?


I see your point. It implies that the way we see and think is bound to this mass of people that we are in the midst of. Like a pebble in the midst of an avalanche.

How could you unbind yourself? For better seeing etc.


I think a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted for claims like the age of the universe. The closer the measurements are to a human magnitude, the more likely they are to hold up to future science.




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