It seems to me that the propositions "1 +1 = 2" and "the earth is some 4.5 billion years old" are made and accepted by many in this forum as if they were to be granted equal certitude; as if they were both a "matter of fact." Does science deal in matters of fact or not? If you want to say science has no business dealing in matters of fact or proof; no business seeking out, knowing, and teaching truths, then you and your hearers are subject to universe of fantasy no more grounded in science than any other source of presumed knowledge. Anything goes where fact and conjecture have an equal footing.
To maintain on the one hand that science deals in "matters of fact," and then on the other hand to deny that it deals in matters of fact or proof, is truly to engage in the delight of eating one's cake and having it, too. Those who posess a small amount of common sense are happy to pull on that goofy mask and let it smack back into the face of those who promote folly while dressed in the garb of science.
It is painfully apparent that dogmatic evolutionists have difficulty accepting and expressing the fact there are varying degrees of certitude in the faith they hold dear, their practice of logic being de-testicled under the strain of semantic gymnastics.
Long on pompous hot air, short on sense.
Hehe. I am not the one filling the world with books to explain away the obvious fact that the heavens and the earth demonstrate more design, intelligence, and order than unguided process like natural selection and random mutation. That label and libel belongs elsewhere.
"1 + 1 = 2", as has been pointed out to you before in this thread, is a matter of arbitrary choice of fundamental assumptions of a number system. Most of my working day, I assume that "1 + 1 = 10".
are made and accepted by many in this forum as if they were to be granted equal certitude; as if they were both a "matter of fact."
If you want to examine what science thinks, you must ask what scientists think, and critique science's vocabulary--not what civilians think, using sloppy civilian word usage. If you wish to use the word "fact" interchangably with "proved", I can't stop you, but I also don't need to defend science over this shortcoming. Scienctists only assign levels of confidence to theories, and any scientist who is still breathing air in this century knows that that number has been pretty heavily subject to revision and tuning over the last 2 centuries. As is common with scientific theories.
Some, including me, would argue that "1 + 1 = 2" isn't as reliable a "fact", as, say, your perception that the table in your living room exists when you are touching it. "1 + 1 = 2" is only as reliable as the proof system in which you proved it, and only assuming that you have made an appropriate mapping between the math and the field of discourse to which you wish to apply it, and, as I've pointed out, Russell and Whitehead's proof stood up for 50 years before anyone noticed it was a false proof. Can you show me the proof upon which rests your assurance that the proof system that proved 1 + 1 = 2 is itself reliable beyond question? You take proof systems as reliable, based on confidence in their repeated success, I aver that your confidence in 1 + 1 = 2 is high because of repeated observation confirmation, not because there is some magic barrier between "proof", or "fact" and "highly reliable conjecture". The scientific theory, likewise, that the earth is 4.5 billion years old is based on repeated observational confirmation of a somewhat more sophisticated, and therefore, somewhat less reliable nature. However, scientists regard that level of confidence as highly likely, and the level of reliability one assigns to a conjecture in order to be willing to call it a "fact" in casual conversation is not established by government or by AAAS committee.
If you want to say science has no business dealing in matters of fact or proof; no business seeking out, knowing, and teaching truths, then you and your hearers are subject to universe of fantasy no more grounded in science than any other source of presumed knowledge. Anything goes where fact and conjecture have an equal footing.
At bottom, conjecture is all you have. Proof is just a mathematical game. Contrary to your absurd conjecture, this does not paralyze our brains, we go right on ahead making distinctions and getting useful work done without any need of absolute certainty in order to do so. Blovating on, into paragraph after paragraph with an increasingly patronizing air toward scientists, does not improve your argument, it just makes you annoying.
The scientific explanations for what we see do not exclude the possibility that God is ultimately responsible for the universe. You might be amused to know that Catholics who hold otherwise, are in conflict with church doctrine and committing apostesy. Most catholics can manage to hold on to their faith in the face of science, and it strikes me as showing little confidence in God, to imagine that you somehow need to defend Him from science.
I just realized that you are arguing at the same
time, that scientists do, and don't, have absolute
convictions of certainty. Hard to lose an argument
that way, eh?