I wear a small, fossilized dinosaur tooth as a necklace; one of my most treasured possessions. A customer is buying some gift items from me at the checkout and spots it.
Customer: “Why do you have a tooth around your neck?”
I explain what it is.
Customer: “Ugh. You don’t believe in all that evolution stuff, do you? That’s absolutely NO evidence to support it.”
Me: “Well, there is literally some evidence hanging around my neck, so—”
Customer: “—But it’s just a theory!”
Me: “Well, a scientific theory has a different meaning to how the word ‘theory’ is commonly used. It means the explanation of why something is has been rigorously tested and has passed all tests to prove it. It’s about as close to certain as we can get.”
Customer: “Yeah but it’s still just a theory. Plenty of other evidence for other things too.”
Me: “Such as?”
Customer: “The Bible!”
Me: “Well, we’ll just agree to disagree.”
Customer: “See? You can’t put up an argument when I bring up the Word of God!”
Me: “I just don’t see us being able to finish that conversation in the time it takes to finish our transaction.”
Customer: “Because you know you’d lose.”
Me: “Ma’am, did you know gravity is also ‘just a theory’? Feel free to float away with that fact.”
I’ve come to expect these kinds of conversations when I’m in a religious part of the US, but what made it worse was that it happened in the gift shop of a natural history museum.
