What's wrong with being elitist if you are trying to encourage people to join the elite rather than being exclusive?

I think there is a sort of box-ticking mentality. Not just in the teaching profession. You hear about it in medicine and nursing. It's a lawyer-driven insistence on meeting prescribed standards rather than just being a good doctor.

I do understand people when they say that you destroy the magic of childhood if you encourage too much skeptical questioning.

It is possible in medicine, even when you intend to do good, to do harm instead. That is why science thrives on actively encouraging criticism rather than stifling it.

All the fossils that we have ever found have always been found in the appropriate place in the time sequence. There are no fossils in the wrong place.

Rather than say he's an atheist, a friend of mine says, 'I'm a tooth fairy agnostic,' meaning he can't disprove God but thinks God is about as likely as the tooth fairy.