DB> KK> An even more important issue is that we need more data, and
DB> KK> it will be very expensive to get those data.  The current
DB> KK> proliferation of hypotheses is typical in situations where
DB> KK> there are enough data to support all of them but not enough
DB> KK> to kill any of them.  NASA is cooking up a couple of 'next
DB> KK> generation' space telescopes, but they aren't gonna fly for
DB> KK> at least five years.
DB>I dunno Keith.  As much as I enjoy the new views of the macro and
DB>micro cosm, the expense you allude to has been increasing as the
DB>data sets have.  And, I suspect a law of diminishing returns with
DB>an exponential price to find ever smaller peices of the puzzle in
DB>ever bigger haystacks of chaos.
I think astronomers would disagree with you.  The Hubble has already
showed us more about the deep universe than was known in all of
history.  The next scopes will probably be able to look back all
the way to the time when the BB models presume the universe to
have begun.  IOW I think we are at the fron of the learning curve,
not at the end of it.
We always tend to unconsciously assume that we, as a culture,
have a pretty good picture of things, but the fact is that
we really know very little about the deep universe.
Every time we build a better telescope, we point it up there
and it shows us some damned thing that nobody predicted.
Another example: in the late 19th century it was well known that
the broad outlines of physics had been drawn by Newton, Faraday
et al., and it only remained to fill in the details.
DB>This notion has lead me to the study of mysticism and myth which
DB>has had the serendiptous effect of exposing to me cosmologies that
DB>are as ancient, or more, than religious dogma, but which aren't in
DB>fact, in contradiction to the available scientific interpretions
DB>of the facts such as we now find them in the digs, telescopes and
DB>quantum physics labs.
That is all well and good, IMHO, but the reason I think the 20th
century is the most spiritual century of all time is because we
are learning to separate superstition from spirituality.  Rejecting
the literality of Genesis does not require us to reject the divinity
of Jesus.
Empirical spirituality?  
Some ancient cosmologies require insights that go beyond words,
and modern physics does too.  It does not follow, however, that
therefore the object pointed to is the same thing.
Vaguely a propos of all this, Frank has been trying to make an
important distinction between myth and superstition, but so far
the crucial light has not dawned on my particular set of neurons.
Myth can be studied from an archeological point of view, since
many myths have some kernel of factual validity -- Atlantis can
be explained as a distorted story of the explosion of an island
in the Mediterranean.  But we all live out myths we aren't even
aware of (life scripts), and we all believe in myths, which we
call common sense.
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