Doggerel #140: "Emotion"

-Professor Farnsworth: "She's become a slave to her emotions! Just like every woman. Especially you, Leela."
-Leela: *SLAP*

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

Since woos think logic is incompatible with emotion, many think emotion is a sign of logical shortcomings. While it's true that emotional investment can cloud someone's judgment, it doesn't mean that being emotional automatically negates the logic behind your position.

You can be jealous. You can be irritated. You can be angry and noisy. And if you've got a solid line of evidence and rational arguments, you can also be right. That's what's important in the argument, since we're out to establish the truth. A person's tone of voice does not play a role in that decision.

We are human beings, not computers. We have needs and desires, and when we've got what looks like a good grasp of a problem and its solution (or know the problems in someone else's "solution"), and if it matters to us, we're very capable of being emotional, even if we're being rational every step of the way. Skeptics like me don't like the idea of people being cheated out of money, time, and possibly even life by psychics, alties, and religious fundamentalists. We're rational because we care.