"You rarely hear a scientist say that they are sure about anything."

I wish I could just agree with you and let it drop. I don't entirely disagree with your assessment RE:religion and its "certainty/dogmatism".

But I DO find the same dogmatism, maybe not in science, but among those who think they are "speaking science". You wanna find some of the angriest posts on the mudcat, search for all the countless threads like this one that touch on the evolution/creation issue and see if you don't agree that the dogma is from the "scientific" point of view...

...and, in those cases, nobody is suggesting, as you do, that "To the best of our current knowledge" caveot that you claim for them. They are right goddamn it -- and for a school to even SUGGEST that one cannot draw a conclusion from science regarding an intelligent origin (that one is not possible) is absolute HERESY.

Applying what we currently know from science, I tend to conclude that the Earth is much older than the creation story with which I was raised. For that reason, I also tend to look at that Genesis account differently than I was once taught. I don't think it was written as a journalistic account of seven days.

Interestingly, though, I DO find the Genesis account to be something other that simple "mythology". For one thing, it lacks the ancient on-the-back-of-a-turtle, flat-earth, how-the-bear-got-its-tail type of story telling of "mythology". It's WAY too matter-of-fact for that kind of interpretation.

I don't conclude anything from the observation other than I think that the Genesis account is something "other" -- perhaps not to be taken literally as a journal of seven days, but certainly not as a purposely made-up story to pacify or mysitfy an intellectually dull people.