I was witness to a most pleasing event in chemistry class once.
I had a gnarly old woman as a teacher, she taught chemistry and biology mostly, had no formal schooling in fancy things such as pedagogical methodology and such. But what she had was a Phd. in biochemistry and a lifetime of lab work in the most prestige smelling institutions in Europe..
Enter Creation Boy, we will call him that for the dual purpose of humiliation and clarification, who thought it was a good idea to start a debate by answering a chemistry question regarding ground strata and composition with "God created it in layers 6000 years ago" or some such.
What ensued made it very hard for me not to laugh out loud at him.
T=Teacher CB=Creation Boy
T: Well, you could answer that but I can not give you a point for it.
CB: So you admit it is a possible answer?
T: No, I meant you can physically write it, but that does not make it anyway near right my boy.
CB: But how can you prove that it is wrong? If you can disprove it I will accept the score, but carbon dating is not capable of that is it? *sneering*
T: Oh my sweet boy, this does put me in an awkward place.... *worried look*
CB: Well you can just give me my point and we can forget about it. *smugness personified*
T: Well... What I mean is either you slept through the class up until now, or you just have a hard time to grasp these quite basic principles... Either way it is my fault, but according to the target for a passing grade you have to understand this... I just can not give you a pass on this course child. I am very sorry. You till get an A on this exam though, despite the missed point on the strata...
Now, here CB turned red, and then white, in anger I guess, not that he was any other color than cellar-parchment white to begin with. He doggedly and foolishly went back to his (already at this time (-01) outdated) carbon dating argument.
CB: I do not believe you answered my question, how can you prove it?
T: You are right, I did not, because we covered this area of chemistry for a whole two weeks. Application is the test of understanding. You see when dating things, mostly anything, you use a whole number of isotopes in the strata. We of course have the millions of ore samples from the oil and mining industries to thank for our very solid scientific understanding of this are of geological chemistry. I should warn you that if you cross these thoughts over to biology I will have to fail you in that class as well, a shame since your test scores are doing quite well....
What made it extremely funny and made me remember it word for word, is the fact that she spoke to him like a way-ward five tear old. Which she always did to anyone who erred in the sciences. I got my share to but for less aggrieving offenses.
(Pastaliban tip: When arguing with infidels, and asked the "What is your point?" question, present the sharp edge of your scimitar for inspection. Thus dispersing any illusions about your willingness to skewer snooty infidels before dinner.)