veltz – I understand your point, but I think there is a huge difference between creating a world with fully formed things in and adding in things that aren’t necessary. The back-story in this case does not add anything to the running of the world nor to our understanding of HKB’H, unlike, say in Harry Potter, where the back-story is quite vital.
And Derech Hamelech, I think I explained why his philosophical answer didn’t do it for me. My mention of logic vs revelation was a bit of a sidebar, and referred only to your mention of having the age revealed to us. The problem here is that, as you mention, the scientists ‘don’t have all the facts’, in which case, why did HKB’H put the fossils there to be found, presumably by the people who ‘don’t have all the facts’? I mean, it wasn’t for us, to whom you claim revelation of age – no point – and it wasn’t for them because that would be deliberately misleading, as they are not in possession of ‘all the facts’. So for whom?
By the way, chazal do not count as ‘revelation’, they were not nevi’im. As for it being in chazal, I presume you refer to shita alfei shnin hava alma. Please learn rishonim, as there is some debate as to what ‘alma’ means. According to many (e.g. Rav Chisdai Crescas [rebbe of the Ran]) it refers to civilisation (see Torah Or, droshos);hence ‘v’chad choruv’ – an impossibility if it refers to the universe (if nothing exists, there can be no time to measure how long it does not exist for [see gr’a on the words ‘breishis boro’, and also general relativity]) and which would also otherwise beg the question of ‘what comes after that?’. This is also the opinion of the Ibn Ezra and Ramaban (Al Hatorah). Furthermore, there are plenty of chazals about the age of the universe which give different ages (medrash yovelos, shittas r’ yehuda in medrash rabba etc.). So which is the ‘authentic’ revelation through chazal?
Please understand, I am not saying that I personally believe in a billion-year-old universe. I don’t have any belief whatsoever as to the age of the universe, it makes no difference to my emuana. All I am trying to point out is that the issue is not as cut and dry as some make it out to be.
As for your assertion that Darwin ‘went off’. I suppose that that’s why in the end of ‘Origin'(you know, that book in which he supposedly rejected G-d…) he marvels at how G-d made such a wonderful system for running the world. The fact is, he never actually lost his faith. His student, Huxley, was the one that made evolution into an anti-religion issue. It was him who claimed that Darwin lost his faith, despite there being no evidence for that, and even, as just mentioned, evidence to the contrary.