OK, enough thread drift already.... Guest TIA and LH have between them produced a pretty good analysis of what the belief system we know as "science" is about and how it works. That it works - and doesn't really conflict with the other belief systems we know as "religions" or "New Age philosophies" - will be obvious to anyone who has used a mobile phone, a GPS system or a digital camera lately. And I am aware that these things are the result of the application of technology based on a mixture of science and concepts of measurement (when I programme the GPS on my boat to help me find the way to a port, I use the artificial conventions of latitude and longitude to do it, but it works pretty well in the real world).

One other concept I'd like to chuck into the debate is that of statistics. "Experimental scientific" enquiry into natural phenomena is based on the idea that ANYONE - approaching the theory from any philosophical angle - can repeat the experiment described and should be able to get the same result. In fact, of course, this isn't the case, particularly where the experimental methods are inadequate. That's why medical science for example uses statistical analysis of large numbers of results to eliminate as far as possible the effects of observational variation on the conclusions that can be drawn from a given theory.

And the next time anyone comes at you with statements like "Science doesn't have all the answers - my uncle smoked 100 cigarettes a day and he lived to be 95", you can retaliate with the statistician's put-down "A sample of one proves NOTHING!"