David Gerard wrote:
Wouter Steenbeek (musiqolog@hotmail.com) [050418 04:17]:
You didn't get the point! Indeed, scientists are given a big authority, so people, especially encyclopaedia-makers, use their theories to form their opinion. So, in our culture, the view of scientists is especially favoured among encyclopaedia-makers, because they are supposed to have justificated their views by means of an elaborate dialectic process, not by dogmatic tradition. On the other hand, for other people the Bible might have a bigger authority. They form a different image of the world around us than we do, and than most scientists do.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=2&articleID=000E... was supposed to be humour ...
We recently had a long debate that established that Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia which does not engage in the kind of tomfoolery found in that magazine. :-)
Ec