Value judgements

We all make value judgements. I guess it's human nature. The question is whether we allow these judgements to be ruled by our heart or our head.

I witnessed an emotional outburst from a graduate student last week who verbally attacked another student's research because, in her opinion, an animal ethics committee should never have approved such a study in the first place. The verbal attack was made without any attempt to first appreciate the scientific rationale underlying the study nor, indeed, the strict processes governing the assessment of experiments requiring animal ethics approval. It was an unfortunately misinformed (and a rather self-righteous) outburst driven by the heart.