Scientific evidence can (and often has been) a bludgeon used to beat down dissenters and coerce colleagues to adopt true facts.

But science also can (and ought to be) an olive branch to carry into conversation — a sign of respect, not only for factual truth but for our neighbor, to whom we owe explanations for the whys of our beliefs and a thorough hearing of the whys of theirs.

Science is a practice of strict and thorough respect conducted through the medium of our shared — and, like it or not, very real — material world.