Ben goes on:
On your scientific literacy, until you actually demonstrate some knowledge, I see no reason to assume that you have it.
Huh?

I thought I'd done(*) that, here and in the other fora we've inhabited over the years. But, what the hey, either I've posted less than I thought, or you just didn't read it / forgot it.

Anywhichway, guess I'll have to live with that... Because I'm not about to write a High School essay on the process of science -- an eternal provisorium, from hypothesis to experiment, falsifiability and repeatability, yadda yadda yadda -- for you. I *could*, of course, but what the fuck would be the use? You'd never know if I wrote it from my own knowledge, or put it together from bits and pieces I found on the Internet. (Heck, I could probably get most of it from posts by you! :-)

So by all means, (be like a Creationist and :-) hang on to your misconceptions.



(*): Not to the level of a practicing scientist, of course, but as a (hopefully well-)informed layman; having taken the "Natural Sciences" curriculum in the Gymnasium (approx. "High School", for Yanks) and kept on reading stuff --popularisations, to be sure, but hopefully mainly reputable ones -- occasionally in my free time ever since.