sciencegeek said: if it's important to "prove" that someone named Jesus was born during the reign of Herod, then you need to dig up an historical record from the Roman census to support that. that's the job of historians, not scientists.

I haven't visited this thread in ages, so was really quite lucky to come across that comment from sciencegeek. It is key to remember what sort of question you want answering. For many questions, science is by far the best method we have (and as I've said often enough in this thread I'm a scientist by nature and employment.) But there are valid alternatives for other questions, such as the historian referred to above. Where there is a conflict between science and another approach I'd always go with science [after suitable verification and stress-testing of the answer]. But I do not think that the scientific method is the best way of solving all problems.