Zeteticism is Scientific Skepticism, the belief that through scientific method if a hypothesis such as the supernatural isn't supported by peer review of the scientific community its claims are unsubstantiated or dubious.
A Zetetic defined as the "true skeptic" who demonstrates open minded objectivity. While a Pseudoskeptic debunks instead of inquiry of phenomena. Marcello Truzzi Eastern Michigan University Professor of Sociology coined the terms Zeteticism and Pseudoskepticism to describe the difference in how organizations employ Scientific Skepticism.
Scientific Skepticism
Wikipedia excerpts...
Scientific skepticism is the practice of questioning the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence or reproducibility, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge". For example, Robert K. Merton asserts that all ideas must be tested and are subject to rigorous, structured community scrutiny (see CUDOS).
Other writers have lauded the virtues of scientific skepticism as a general attitude toward any novel or poorly tested hypothesis. "Scientific skepticism is considered good. ... Under this principle, one must question, doubt, or suspend judgment until sufficient information is available. Skeptics demand that evidence and proof be offered before conclusions can be drawn. ... One must thoughtfully gather evidence and be persuaded by the evidence rather than by prejudice, bias, or uncritical thinking." -Sue, Stanley; Science, Ethnicity, and Bias Where Have We Gone Wrong?
About the term and its scope; This sort of skepticism is also called rational skepticism (also spelled scepticism), and it is sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry.
The term "scientific skepticism" appears to have originated in the work of Carl Sagan, first in Contact (p. 306), and then in Billions and Billions (p. 135).
Scientific skepticism is different from philosophical skepticism, which questions our ability to claim any knowledge about the nature of the world and how we perceive it. Scientific skepticism primarily uses deductive arguments to evaluate claims which lack a suitable evidential basis. The New Skepticism described by Paul Kurtz is scientific skepticism.
Overview; Scientific skeptics believe that empirical investigation of reality leads to the truth, and that the scientific method is best suited to this purpose. Considering the rigor of the scientific method, science itself may simply be thought of as an organized form of skepticism. This does not mean that the scientific skeptic is necessarily a scientist who conducts live experiments (though this may be the case), but that the skeptic generally accepts claims that are in his/her view likely to be true based on testable hypotheses and critical thinking.
Scientific skeptics attempt to evaluate claims based on verifiability and falsifiability and discourage accepting claims on faith or anecdotal evidence. Skeptics often focus their criticism on claims they consider to be implausible, dubious or clearly contradictory to generally accepted science. Scientific skeptics do not assert that unusual claims should be automatically rejected out of hand on a priori grounds - rather they argue that claims of paranormal or anomalous phenomena should be critically examined and that extraordinary claims would require extraordinary evidence in their favor before they could be accepted as having validity.
From a scientific point of view, theories are judged on many criteria, such as falsifiability, Occam's Razor, and explanatory power, as well as the degree to which their predictions match experimental results. Skepticism is part of the scientific method; for instance an experimental result is not regarded as established until it can be shown to be repeatable independently.
By the principles of skepticism, the ideal case is that every individual could make his own mind up on the basis of the evidence rather than appealing to some authority, skeptical or otherwise. In practice this becomes difficult because of the amount of knowledge now possessed by science, and so an ability to balance critical thinking with an appreciation for consensus amongst the most relevant scientists becomes vital.
Empirical or scientific skeptics do not profess philosophical skepticism. Whereas a philosophical skeptic may deny the very existence of knowledge, an empirical skeptic merely seeks likely proof before accepting that knowledge.
...Wikipedia end.
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The Skeptic's Dictionary
Skepticism (excerpt)
by Robert T. Carroll
skepdic.com
skeptics as inquirers
On those issues where argument and counterargument equaled one another, the Pyrrhonists held that we should suspend judgment. They apparently found that such a stance fit well with their desired goal of peace of mind (ataraxia). For, it is the dogmatist who gets agitated when he doesn't possess the good or truth he knows he should have, or when others refuse to accept what he knows is the truth.
scientific skepticism
The term 'scientific skepticism' may have originated with Carl Sagan (1934-1996), an astronomer who spent many years promoting science and skepticism. Science since Hume's day has proven by its results that the assumptions it makes about the existence of an external world, the reality of causality, and the stability of natural laws are justified and are grounded in more than just our psychological disposition to believe them. The success of science, in part due to advancements in technology over the past century, has cast doubt on the validity of the pessimism of empiricists like John Locke, who despaired that we would ever know the intimate details about the constituents of the physical universe.
Scientific skepticism takes it for granted that the methods of science are the best methods for gaining knowledge and that skepticism is warranted when knowledge claims are made that reject the methods of science, contradict well-established scientific facts or principles, or go beyond the limits of science. Thus, scientific skepticism is particularly critical of paranormal and supernatural claims, and of what is often referred to as pseudoscience. By extension, scientific skepticism considers all extraordinary claims as dubious. Such claims are not to be dismissed as false, however. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof" is a commonly expressed mantra among advocates of scientific skepticism.
As Michael Shermer points out, skepticism does not stop with doubting extraordinary or "weird" (as he calls them) claims. Scientific skepticism uses scientific methods to investigate such claims. Scientific knowledge regarding the nature of perception, memory, and human testimony, as well as the tools of critical thinking, are a part of the skeptical inquiry into dubious claims. Finally, scientific skepticism rejects the notion that empirical matters should be taken on faith; beliefs should be based on sufficient evidence, not intuition, authority, or tradition.
promotion of science and critical thinking
Because so many "extraordinary" or "weird" claims are based on a poor understanding of perception, memory, testimony, and science, it is only natural that scientific skepticism should also involve the promotion of science and critical thinking. The modern skeptical movement, therefore, is not in the business of debunking for debunking's sake or of denying for denying's sake. Scientific skepticism does lead to the debunking of many claims. Debunking, however, involves demonstrating where the claim goes wrong and thus provides the positive benefit of exemplifying critical thinking and scientific investigation in action. Denialism, on the other hand, is not a part of scientific skepticism. Among other things, denialism is a polemical tactic that uses uncertainty to cast doubt on consensus viewpoints by belittling the value of probabilism. As such, modern denialists are more akin to the ancient Sophists than to the ancient skeptics. Scientific skepticism, on the other hand, recognizes that even though some uncertainty may exist, the sum of the evidence may preponderantly support some claims. A reasonable person accepts what is most likely the case rather than demanding that we not give our assent to any proposition until one can say there is no doubt that this is the case. Critical thinkers recognize that the precautionary principle can be paralyzing. Science may not be immune to error and it may not provide us with infallible truth, but it is the best method we've discovered so far for getting at the most reasonable beliefs about the world we live in.
The Skeptic's Dictionary end
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Scientific Method, Falsifiability, and Pseudoscience
Wikipeida excerpts
All gathered data, including the experimental or environmental conditions, are expected to be documented for scrutiny and made available for peer review, allowing further experiments or studies to be conducted to confirm or falsify results.
In the mid-20th century Karl Popper put forth the criterion of falsifiability to distinguish science from non-science. Falsifiability means that a result can be disproved. For example, a statement such as "God created the universe" may be true or false, but no tests can be devised that could prove it either way; it simply lies outside the reach of science.
A field, practice, or body of knowledge might reasonably be called pseudoscientific when (1) it is presented as consistent with the norms of scientific research; but (2) it demonstrably fails to meet these norms.
Science is also distinguishable from revelation, theology, or spirituality in that it offers insight into the physical world obtained by empirical research and testing. For this reason, the teaching of creation science and intelligent design has been strongly condemned in position statements from scientific organizations. The most notable disputes concern the evolution of living organisms, the idea of common descent, the geologic history of the Earth, the formation of the solar system, and the origin of the universe.
Falsifiability was one of the criteria used by Judge William Overton in the McLean v. Arkansas ruling to determine that 'creation science' was not scientific and should not be taught in Arkansas public schools as such (it can be taught as religion). In his conclusion related to this criterion he stated that "While anybody is free to approach a scientific inquiry in any fashion they choose, they cannot properly describe the methodology as scientific, if they start with the conclusion and refuse to change it regardless of the evidence developed during the course of the investigation." It was also enshrined in United States law as part of the Daubert Standard set by the Supreme Court for whether scientific evidence is admissible in a jury trial.
...Wikipedia end.
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I don't consider agnosticism as a position half way between 2 different conclusions as if its some blend of the 2 but instead as a separate category of principles as far removed from atheism and theism as they are from each other. I don't think someone who is undecided is any kind of agnostic since their indecision isn't based on agnostic tenets but are equally undecided of all position and therefore equally distant to them all. Also while some atheists might classify newborns as atheists but I don't see how an indifferent lack of opinion is the same as a philosophy with a specific reasoned belief.
Maybe we shouldn't be using each positions' conclusions to classify them but instead use the criteria used in making the conclusion. Visually I would describe it with the indifferent at a central point, surrounded by a close ring representing the undecided in the middle of a 3D xyz plot. Then atheism, theism, empirical skeptic, and agnosticism each at their own separate coordinate of equally distance apart but not sharing the same axis to exemplify these are definitions of philosophy or methodology and not just of their conclusions.
Also this visualization helps avoid trying to find some hybrid like suggesting an undecided can be split 'between' an atheist and an agnostic for example. You may be an undecided that favors 2 conclusions but that doesn't mean their philosophies are mutually compatible and only confuse the issue. It's better to make the decision based on criteria of the philosophy than merely on it's conclusion.
In the case of atheism, although there are different shades, generally I think the chief tenet would be 'the more a claim is contrary to known evidence then the more it is unlikely'. So for atheists for all practical purposes the likelihood of the supernatural is zero. In detailing this tenet I say "know evidence" instead of 'known scientific method' because the atheist conclusion doesn't have conclusive peer review support, an important aspect of the scientific method which in part differentiate the philosophy of empirical skeptics.
Theism I would classify as 'reasoned via spiritual teachings'. I think the term belief and faith would be misnomers here for this exercise for although many may argue the rational or criteria behind the reasoning used I would still classify it as a reasoned decision. I think there's an element of intuition as well for both theism and atheism. Most theists would say they would still be convinced of the existence of the supernatural even if they were presented with absolute proff against it but that 'gut opinion' can be changed over years of truly irrefutable evidence (if such a thing were even possible) the concept is acknowledged in phrases such as having a 'crisis of faith' or in 'questioning one's beliefs' and in 'shunning'.
And although atheist promote their reasoning as purely factual their human nature gut instinct would be to initially resist or deny irrefutable evidence contrary to their world view but most would eventually accept it. My point is that with the right modifiers reason ultimately influences intuition. it still bases decisions on some spiritual teachings or knowledge. Also I'm concerned using different terms like belief, thought, and affirmation would be rhetorical since they each have different connotations.
So I would classify the different positions thusly.
-Atheism tenet of, 'reason based on known evidence' that determines the existence of the supernatural as false.
-Theism tenet of, 'reason based on spiritual teachings' that determines the existence of the supernatural as true.
-Agnostic tenet of, 'reason based on lack of know evidence' that determines the existence of the supernatural as inconclusive.
-Empirical/Scientific Skeptic tenet of 'reason based on know scientific method' that determines the existence of the supernatural as inconclusive.
-Indifferent who abstain from any tenet and also for their conclusion of the existence of the supernatural they abstain.
-Undecided who's tenet is undecided and also for their conclusion of the existence of the supernatural they are undecided.
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"I do not fear death. I had been dead billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." -Mark Twain
The oblivion in death is no mystery, it's the same oblivion we were born from, the same we knew before conception. Dying is a thing to be feared but being dead is not for in death we are oblivious of all things including fear and loneliness. We are stardust breathed into life, fleeting fragments of the very universe itself gazing with wonderment upon its own reflection and then released, returning back home to the stars.
Regarding suicide; When asked, 'If when we're dead we're oblivious and wouldn't miss being alive then what's the point in living if we're going to die anyways?' But by this reasoning then if in death we don't care what's the lure in wanting to be immortal and live forever instead? Immortality would have no advantage over a prematurely shortened life unless there's some perceived value in continuing to live, even if only for the lifespan of a mortal. There's no 'point' or cosmic necessity in living, it's simply part of our biological and psychological nature. The oblivion in 'being' dead however isn't the problem, its the act of dying that should be feared. Whether by self preservation and empathy or whatever else the thought of killing, either of one's self or of others, is repugnant. It wouldn't be a logical choice, it would be a tragic one.
"Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return". -Genesis 3:19
Religions vary in their beliefs the world over but along with secular beliefs they all share one tenet, the Ethic of Reciprocity... The Golden Rule...
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." -The Holy Bible, Luke 6:31
"The Golden Rule is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights, in which each individual has a right to just treatment, and a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others." -Wikipedia
"In faith and hope the world will disagree, but all mankind's concern is charity." -Alexander the Great
"The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of life or existence in general... An alternative, humanistic (rather than religious) approach is the question 'What is the meaning of my life?'" -Wikipedia
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Elna Baker, "The last big moment that I feel like was a spiritual experience that I had was probably three years ago, maybe four years ago, where I felt like it was getting so hard to believe for me. And I just was like, 'You know, I want a sign again like the one I had when I was young. And I just want you tell me that you're there, God.' And I knelt down and I prayed and I asked this. And then I looked up at the sky and I was like, 'The sky? That's the sign?' Like, anyone can see this. This isn't a sign. You just see a few stars. It's New York-- you see, like, maybe five stars. And just as I was saying, 'This isn't anything, this is just what's always there,' one of the stars shot across the sky. And it was biggest shooting star I'd ever seen. I still don't know what to think of that moment. It was shocking. But as soon as it happened, I did the thing I do now-- I started questioning. Was that meant for me? Or did I just happen to look up at the exact moment when a star shot across the sky? I had forgotten about that moment until I shared it with Ken, and it made me think, 'Well, that's an even bigger sign than what I experienced in the woods as a teenager, so really, I have had signs since then.' And that's when I realized I don't just want a sign, I want to be myself at 14 again-- the kind of person who believes in signs."
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I was about 7 at Sunday school and they asked each of us if we could hear Jesus at our hearts asking to come in and when we said yes they gave us fruit punch and a cookie and when I said yes and cried they were excited that I was so moved. But I avoided their wistful gaze and let them believe the lie. I had cried because I had felt no divine presence, no warmth from God's love. For a long time I just felt totally alone, rejected by the universe. But then started to question if God was actaully speaking at all, that what if this thing people heard or felt wasn't supernatural in origin. I think I stopped believing in God the same time I stopped believing in Santa Claus and for many of the same reasons. I've never felt nor heard any kind of mystical presence, voice, or message that suggested any kind of spiritual reality to me.
When intellectually I started to doubt there was a god, emotionally I responded to my own thoughts with fear and revulsion from my theist upbringing. But the doubts persisted and grew till I also started doubting damnation. You would think doubting god's existence would automatically mean you would doubt damnation but the doubt of god for me actually reinforced the fear of damnation. Eventually I emotionally accepted my doubts, the fear being replaced with something akin to forgiveness. After that another hurtle for me was addressing mortality. I had a hard time with the idea of death and oblivion until I came to think of it not as some state of eternal loneliness nor some mysterious unknown but instead as the same oblivion I was born from, the same one I knew before conception. It didn't bother me then, so why should it now?
For me agnosticism doesn't mean totally abandoning practical knowledge and science, only that the further removed a subject is from my ability or the ability of a reliable source to study then the more uncertain I am of any conclusions that are drawn about it.
A hypothesis having undergone peer review of the scientific community and confirmed becomes an accepted theory, scientific fact, its conclusions having a high level of confidence. All other conclusions are still insufficiently substantiated. Peer review is the gate keeper against conclusions that are premature, faulty, fraudulent, and pseudoscience.
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"The skeptic does not mean him who doubts, but him who investigates or researches, as opposed to him who asserts and thinks that he has found." -Miguel de Unamuno
"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable." -James A. Garfield
"The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off." -Gloria Steinem
The search for truth is more precious than its possession. -Albert Einstein
"Inquiry is fatal to certainty." -William J. Durant
"The trick is living without an answer... I think." -Perry Lyman/Keanu Reeves, Thumbsucker
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." -Sir Martin Rees (astronomer)
"The logic of validation allows us to move between the two limits of dogmatism and skepticism." -Paul Ricoeur
"A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side." -Addison
"A man is to be cheated into passion, but reasoned into truth." -John Dryden
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." -Bertrand Russell
"Common sense is the sum total of all prejudice deposited in the human mind prior to the age of 18." -Albert Einstein
"Prejudices are what fools use for reason." -Voltaire
"The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also." -Mark Twain, a Biography
"Rhetoric without logic, is like a tree with leaves and blossoms, but no root; yet more are taken with rhetoric than logic, because they are caught with fine expressions when they understand not reason." -John Selden
"All the arts of rhetoric, besides order and clearness, are for nothing else but to insinuate wrong ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment." -Locke, John
"There is truth and beauty in rhetoric; but it oftener serves ill turns than good ones." -William Penn
"The florid, elevated, and figurative way is for the passions; for love and hatred, fear and anger, are begotten in the soul by showing their objects out of their true proportion, either greater than the life, or less; but instruction is to be given by showing them what they naturally are. A man is to be cheated into passion, but reasoned into truth." -John Dryden
“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.” ― Henry A. Wallace
"The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim." Gustave Le Bon
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Hermann Goering
"As soon as by one’s own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one’s own right is laid." -Adolf Hitler
Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television. Rita Mae Brown
"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." -Max Planck
The 'purpose' of life is to survive but man also has the ability to choose his own personal purpose as well. So, instead of asking, "What is the meaning of life?" you can ask, "What shall I choose as the meaning of 'my' life?"
"The question [Do you believe in God?] has a peculiar structure. If I say no, do I mean I'm convinced God doesn't exist, or do I mean I'm not convinced he does exist? Those are two very different questions." -Dr. Arroway in Carl Sagan's Contact
"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -George Bernard Shaw
"When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Sir Stephen Henry
“If God listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are forever praying for evil against one another.” – Epicurus
“I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.” - Frederick Douglass
“The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.” – Mark Twain
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" – Carl Sagan
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"Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine." -Robert Moses
"It is no good reason for a man's religion that he was born and brought up in it; for then a Turk would have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian a Christian" -Chillingworth
"Religion is as necessary to reason as reason is to religion. The one cannot exist without the other. A reasoning being would lose his reason in attempting to account for the great phenomena of nature, had he not a Supreme Being to refer to; and well has it been said, that if there had been no God, mankind would have been obliged to imagine one." -George Washingtion
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." -Voltaire
"Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine." -Robert Moses
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A Midsummer Night's Dream; Imagination
by William Shakespeare
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
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To Be Or Not To Be (excerpt)
by William Shakespeare
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
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“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” -Buddha
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.” -Unknown, misattributed to Marcus Aurelius
“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.” -- Epicurus
"I do not fear death. I had been dead billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." -Mark Twain
"I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." -George Herbert Walker Bush (After he was elected president, Bush's White House counsel C. Boyden Gray wrote in response to an inquiry about this quote: "...you may rest assured that this Administration will proceed at all times with due regard for the legal rights of atheists, as will as others with whom the President disagrees."*)
Article IX, Sec. 2, of the Tennessee constitution ("No Atheist shall hold a civil office") states: "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments shall hold any office in the civil department of this state." (Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Texas have similar laws.)
“Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely soley upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.” -Christopher Hitchens
"Where belief in miracles exists, evidence will always be forthcoming to confirm its existence. In the case of moving statues and paintings, the belief produces the hallucination and the hallucination confirms the belief." -D.H. Rawcliffe
And then there are fossiles. Whenever anybody tries to tell me that they believe it took place in seven days, I reach for a fossil and go "fossile!" And if they keep talking I throw it just over their head. -Lewis Black
"Suppose We've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to chruch we're just making him madder and madder!" -Homer Simpson
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Bart: “I figure I’ll go for the life of sin, followed by the presto-chango deathbed repentance.”
Brother Faith: “Wow, that’s a good angle… uh, but that’s not God’s angle! Why not spend your life helping people instead? Then you’re also covered in case of sudden death.”
Bart: “Full coverage? Hmm…”
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“What a blessing to know there’s a devil, and that I’m but a pawn in his game / that my impulse to sin doesn’t come from within, and so I’m not exactly to blame.” — Frank Loesser
The benefits of exploration are 'spin-offs'? How can anyone consider Darwin on the HMS Beagle, Apollo 11, the over 3,500 servicing satellites, the Large Hadron Collider, the International Space Station, or images from the Hubble Telescope and still question the necessity of exploration? Everything we already do isn't nearly enough. Mankind's exploration has been slowly pulling back the curtains of ignorance and revealing the very nature of the universe its self. And yet people would rather debate its merits in spin-offs like freeze-dried foods? Really!?
After a lecture on astronomy the professor was approached by a distraught looking student. The student asked, "Is it true that the sun will turn into a red giant and destroy the world!?" The professor chuckled and said "Yes. But not to worry, it won't happen for billions of years." The student sighed with relief, "Oh good! I thought you said MILLIONS of years."
