New Estimates for Universe's Age

Makarand writes "In a study published recently in the journal Science, a team of researchers say that they are 95% sure the universe is between 11.2 billion and 20 billion years old according to this article on Space.com. The new calculations from cosmologists at Case Western Reserve University and Dartmouth College involved new information about old star clusters in our galaxy and a better understanding of how stars evolve." Which blows my theory that the Universe is predated by Zsa Zsa Gabor, but oh well.

Comments

Re:such accuracy... not

[cje]

The problem is that it's taught as more true than religion, and the atheism aspect of evolution ("man evolved from apes") isn't seperated from the observable theory ("life evolves to the survival of the fittest.")

If you believe that biological evolution predicts that "man evolved from apes", then it is perhaps unsurprising that you have problems with the theory. Let us cut the creationist hyperbole and consider what it really predicts: that mankind and modern apes have a distant, common ancestor. How is this the "atheism aspect" of evolution? What does this say about the existence or nonexistence of God? Be specific. Accuracy counts.

Come on, now. Be brave and say what you really mean: twin-nested common descent is not the "atheism aspect", it is the "anti-Protestant-fundamentalist aspect" of evolution. That would be an accurate statement. If you believe that the entire universe is only 6,000 years old and that the book of Genesis is the literal truth, then you're obviously going to have problems with biological evolution (and most of the rest of the natural sciences, as well.) However, you should know that you are in the minority; the vast majority of Christians have no problems reconciling their faith with obvious scientific fact.

Science education is about the presentation of the current state of the art of various fields of study. This includes chemistry, physics, and yes .. biology. Evolutionary common descent happens to be part of the state of the art in biology (and has been for some time.) That's why it's taught in schools. There are millions of biologists, botanists, zoologists, etc. around the world. If biological evolution is as flawed as some people claim it is, then you would think that there would be massive scientific outcry against the theory. Instead, what we have is a small but vocal handful of "creation scientists", the majority of which are located in the U.S. and just happen to be (surprise!) Protestant fundamentalists.

What does this tell you?

Finally, to get this more on-topic, it should be noted that evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the formation or the age of the universe, the formation or the age of the Earth, the validity of the Koran, or the score of yesterday's Giants-49ers game. It is a biological theory that discusses changes in the gene pool of a population over time. That's all it is.