Pure water, or drinking water??? distilled water boils at a lower temperature, but water so pure is never found in nature...

and if you're high above sea level, it also boils at a lower temperature:eek:

I guess that the questioner was asking the question, "What is the normal boiling point of water at normal conditions?" So really, none of the other posts is relevant to that question.

I think the initial question is subject for heavily interpetation, so I wouldn't be so tough about it.

I saw it written the other day that science now performs the miracles that used to be attributed to gods (healings, vaccines, structures of immense size, airplanes flight, etc). I think this is true. So some now "worship" science as the source of truth and miracles in much the same way they used to worship religion and the gods. It is true science provides more miracles than religion and prophets these days.

Science has also provided us with a universal and common story about our origins (evolution) and about our place in the universe (cosmology) another function formerly provided by religion.

"religion will not regain it former power until it can face change in the same spirit as science does" A.N. Whitehead.

Obviously, the word "miracle" is being used loosely to mean what Hume called, "the marvelous". Vaccines are marvelous because they prevent what were one dreaded diseases. But they are not miraculous since they are not supernatural things which exist contrary to the laws of nature. So although science provides us with the marvelous, it cannot provide us with the miraculous.

Of course I do not believe in "miracles" which contravene the laws of nature and I do not accept that definition. A supernatural event is of course one of the definitons of "miracle" but there are others as well. In my view life itself is a miracle, as is the development of a human being from a single fertilized cell. The marvelous can also be the miraculous.

and if you're high above sea level, it also boils at a lower temperature:eek:

I guess that the questioner was asking the question, "What is the normal boiling point of water at normal conditions?" So really, none of the other posts is relevant to that question.

Yes. "atomos" is ancient Greek for "indivisible".

Its twoo...Its twoo...

---------- Post added 03-21-2010 at 10:45 PM ----------


That helps, but as anyone should know, people inhabit the whole of the earth, from high altitude to low, boiling contaminated water and pure; so one should apply the short piece test...That is: spell it out..

Could science itself be a religon? The basic principles being gravity, energy, and electricity. The prophets we have faith in being any scientist. I mean, why trust all the scientists to tell us how the world is? Aside from science created medicine and technology, why do we beleive them? Could grass just be grass and not forms of carbon and water? Or can sky be sky and not a large formation of varied gases?

No, science is not a religion. science is too general of a term. Most philosophers takes about a complete theory of physics. In general, the question turns to the distinction between observation, and theory. Many people think that a theory is what allow us to "see" observations.

No, science is not a religion. science is too general of a term. Most philosophers takes about a complete theory of physics. In general, the question turns to the distinction between observation, and theory. Many people think that a theory is what allow us to "see" observations.

That's right. They inhabit the whole of the Earth. But the questioner was (I think) asking about normal conditions. Boiling water on the top of Mt. Everest is not a normal condition.