We see feelings changed every day. Teachers change feelings, salespeople change feelings, preachers do, rascals, rapscallions, scoundrels, and scalawags do it too. In deed, emotional decisions get arranged, rearranged, adjusted, overturned,, and reversed on a fairly regular basis. We are not machines; we are an emotional heap of living cells, neurons, muscles, brainy stuff, and electrical circuitry. The last thing we are in some designer's grand clock works.

Now, that is something our own Frank Luntz could work with.

We often rely on the work of accepted experts. Otherwise we would have to keep re-inventing the wheel and that would certainly slow our progress.

That's the way science proceeds? Repeatable experiments and results, peer scrutiny?

Well, the way scientists get represented often looks very neat and ordered, until they write an expose on the profession. The classic one is Hooke and Newton, but the stories go on even today. Google "Canals on Mars", and read the sorry saga right up to 1894 Percival Lowell, describing these "Canals" . These "prognostications" were scientific proof until I was in High School. The "accepted experts" often hold on to their beliefs DESPITE proof to the contrary. I remember seeing a film about Stephen Hawking contradicting his lecturer, who never ever acknowledged his mistake. Stephen and Leonard Susskind have major differences even today. Edwin Hubble wasn't the first person to prove the expanding universe, but he gets the credit for it. The fight for grant money and fame will always create these conditions. But, hopefully, after 10-15 years, a theory should have enough sh&t thrown at it to make it stick to the wall of "accepted theory", and there is enough disparate creditable data available for people to re-analyze. The actual process is messy, arbitrary and demonstrably unreliable, much like people. Anyone who sees "science" as the pristine white-coated, unflappable academic in the glistening temple of truth is in for severe disillusionment.

When I read or hear the words "baby-killer" I think of that as a purely emotional response, designed to shut down the conversation.

@Dick_Martin that phrase is incredibly ugly and offensive, used solely to elicit emotional Reaction, not begin any kind of rational or even civil discourse.......and the correct response is either walk away or punch their lights out. So a very poor, at best, "emotional arguement. I stand by my point that these "-emotional" subjects are subject to Facts and one can easily use Facts to talk about them in the specific or global sense.

So, how do you decide what beer to buy? logic or emotion?

@Dick_Martin I score each beer by taste, price, and alcohol content. The one with the highest score gets my dollar.

I don't drink beer, but things like coffee and scotch I buy by brand, I buy ones that I know I enjoy the taste of.

@RoboGraham . equally rated? You rank each from 1 to 3 and the lowest total wins?

@Dick_Martin No, each brand gets a 1-10 rating for each of those 3 qualities. Then those 3 numbers are added together to get a total score for each beer. Highest score wins. The winner changes over time as my taste change and as I make more money the price category becomes less important. The winner of late had been yuengling but then I found out that the owner of that company endorsed Trump so I decided to boycott.

@RoboGraham, wow.... lol... You make my case for me. In the end, you, like me and many others, make purely emotional decisions and you do it on a regular basis without even recognizing it. Which is, of course, my whole point. We best stop pooh-poohing emotional responses 'cuz we do it too.

@Dick_Martin Most definitely. We are human. Emotion plays a huge role in my decision making, I realize that. But at least we nonbelievers try to limit the control our emotions have over us by thinking logically.

@LennyP49 , not when used as bludgeons, which happens way too often.

@LennyP49 , not when used as bludgeons, which happens way too often.

@LennyP49 Perhaps empiricism is too broad a category. Consider a number over which there should be a lot of controversy in the next few years. The US census.Whether and how to adjust the numbers for those people not in residence at the time of the count has created a controversy in the past and should do the same again. Here is where the emotional bias enters.

What we chose to measure and how we go about measuring it are influenced by emotion, William James said something like, It is not until we can account for the accuracy of our measures that we can be said to be doing science.

That's the whole point of course. How DO you make the case using emotion? It's pretty much a given that using using logic in an emotional argument is like fretting about whether to use a plastic or metal strainer to carry water.

You don't.

@IntellectualRN , can you accept that most of the education in America is in fact done by sales people and by advertising? Schools come in a distant second. Further to that, I would posit that that is a good thing.

If reason doesn't win in the long term, we're doomed as a species.

@IntellectualRN - Your arguments are valid. First, I'm enjoying the hell out of this string, everyone here is truly thinking about what they are saying, how refreshing for an internet forum! Now, I humbly propose that although it may not be apparent at first, regardless of the emotional outburst to argument that you are confronting, sowing the seeds of logic and reason will eventually take root if there is ANY fertile soil in the minds of your emotional adversary. It is not a fruitless endeaver. the power of your words should never be discounted. (and I am preachin to the entire choir).

"If reason doesn't win in the long term, we're doomed as a species."
Sir, you are exactly right, and there is no doubt in mind about that.

lol... well that was simple enough.