[Tribune7]

There are some things that it is critical to know the truth about. There are something it doesn't matter hardly a whit. Where do you put knowing the age of the Earth on this spectrum?</p>

[ahayes]

I think in everything the truth is preferable to a lie.

[ahayes]

Clarification, since a friend and I hashed out the groundworks of this a year or two ago: In everything the truth is preferable to a lie unless the truth is being told to a person whom it will hurt grievously and who is cognitively unable to process and come to terms with this truth. So if an elderly woman has Alzheimer's and forgets her husband has died, it's permissable not to continue to remind her every day that he's dead when she asks where he is and thus make every day of the rest of her life miserable.

But in general, the truth is preferable.