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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (83812)	7/13/2000 6:00:08 PM
From: epicure	Respond to of 108807

And I say it's an opinion- but I'm not silly enough to say my opinion of your opinion is truth. The fact that you get emotional does NOT make things true.

To: The Philosopher who wrote (83812)	7/14/2000 12:33:13 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

>When I first looked on my three children as they emerged from their mother's body I felt an indescribable sense of joy, of trepidation, of commitment. I can't prove it and can't explain it, but I know in my head it is true. It's not an opinion, it's a fact. < It it not a fact - at least to others than you. It is a testimonial. That is one of the toughest things about science for nonscientists (and many sloppy scientists!) to understand. There's fact, there's just-ain't-so, and then there is the vast shadowland between the two. Facts are measurable and repeatable. Testimonials aren't antifact, but they aren't fact either. One needs to believe the testifier. That's why we have judges - there exists a need in the workings of any human society for a wise, experienced practitioner to rank conflicting/competing testimony in order of "goodness". Any parent presiding over a childrens' argument knows this. There's very little science van do with testimonial except record it and see if - maybe, maybe not - the story fits into a theorythat comes down thepike at a later date. (A classic case of this working out is the matching of Pliny's fantastic account of the Vesuvius eruption of 79 to emerging understanding about pyroclastic flows.) (The rich repository of preserved physical evidence in Pompeii and Herculaneum didn't hurt either.)