One of the most important classes I took in college was an evolutionary biology course during my junior year. There were about 7 of us, sitting at big cold lab benches, which is what happens when you're a bio major at an institution that favors the E in STEM. I don't think we even talked about evolution for the first month. Our professor, who up until that point had been an intimidating figure in my life, started the course by slowly, carefully, teaching us how to use evidence to build an argument. She used the age of the Earth as an example, and walked us through the history of how both theologians and scientists have tried to predict the age of the Earth and the universe, and how strides in technology and science allowed us to paint a more vivid, accurate, and detailed picture over time. We now understand that the universe is over 10 billion years old, and our Earth is 4.5 billion years old, but it took a long time and a lot of underestimations to get those numbers. The other thing she taught us in no uncertain terms was that not all opinions matter, and some opinions may be more justified than others when it comes to matters of the truth. People are different and they will all have different opinions, but some can back theirs up with real information and data, and those opinions and arguments are infinitely more powerful.

I'm not a scientist anymore and I've certainly never been an evolutionary biologist, but I'm immensely grateful for learning these lessons when I did. They are skills that help navigate both controversial science (global warming is real, people) and some political scandal (why is birtherism still a thing in 2016?). And when I see conspiracy after conspiracy pop up on my trending sidebar, I can't help but wonder: why didn't everyone learn this?