Looking Ahead

There are people who say they know the fate of the
earth, the sun, the solar system and all of that, 5
billion years from now, and we are expected to believe
them.

Right now you can't even prognosticate with any clarity
what the weather is going to be like three days from now.

I can hear you say "Well, cosmology is macro and the
weather is micro."

Doesn't make any difference.  The weather in your town
relates just as much to the cosmos as a whole as does the
condition of a star or galaxy.  The uncertainty, and thus
the level of preposterousness, of an anticipation of three
days from now is only magnified proportionally when it's
stretched out to 5 billion years.

Again, I can hear you say "Now, wait.  There are
certain things that are known about stars of a certain
size, and what becomes of them."

Again, it doesn't make any difference.  For one thing,
that knowledge is general, and doesn't take into account
the infinite possibilities of what can transpire in any
individual case.  But even that is beside the point.  You
simply can't know with any certainty what's going to
happen to anything, and the further ahead the anticipation
targets the lower the probability that it will be correct
becomes.