7 Things You Should Never Say To A Scientist

3. Teach The Controversy

This is a gripe that used to be squarely aimed at creationists, specifically the Discovery Institute, but it has extended its boundaries to cover all manner of pseudoscience recently.

The idea of "teaching the controversy", basically originates from a belief that, when teaching children about evolution, we should also include the "problems" that non-scientists (particularly religionists) have with it, and teach it alongside Intelligent Design.

Aside from the fact that the Old Testament is the older source material, and therefore teaching evolution is teaching the controversy, teaching two relatively unrelated fields in the same context is how we get into the "science is an act of faith" mess that we mentioned earlier.

More generally speaking, the idea that "there are two sides to every story" has seeped into discussions of science in general. This ignores the fact that, whether you're talking about vaccines and autism or man-made climate change, the "other sides of the story" have already been considered and found wanting. That's how you science.