Cal,
Welcome to the fray. You seem like a valuable addition to the debate: only eleven posts (at the time I write this) and already you've managed to strike up an meaningful conversation with Brad. Also, you are an excellent writer, it seems. So, once again: welcome.
Cal writes:
I dream of a world in which it is as easy to strike up a conversation with the common man you meet on the street about protein folding or transposons as it is to get him talking about football or baseball or hockey.
I think you may have found your street. It's called EvC.
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins
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