I hope it is appreciated that to write off arguments because of the person rather than taking the arguments at their merit is what is known as an ad homenim attack.

Yeah I followed the link back to the main page too and some of the other arguments are a riot! But that being said... If you have a problem with the arguments you should address the arguments not attack the person (ie those 'raving liberals'

Margaret... If you are still interested in emotions you might want to check this out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019...lance&n=283155

Prinz engages with the most recent findings from the Cognitive Neuro-Sciences and he tries to extend the James-Lange / Le Doux theory of emotions (as perceptions of body state / perceptions of brain areas active when typically experiencing a body state) line. He also has a place for typical causes, appraisals (ie of danger), and action tendencies. He also engages in a fairly sophisticated analysis of the experimental findings and he considers an interesting analogy between emotions and perceptions. So for instance one can imagine oneself into an emotion one can also imagine a visual perception and both seem to involve the parts of the brain relevant to bottom-up (stimulus driven) visual perception and emotional response.

He talks a bit about the function of emotions too. He thinks emotions are perceptions of body / brain changes and that those states represent relational properties that matter for the organism (ie danger). A very interesting read.

Re intelligence... Nobody seems to have mentioned poverty again... And how poverty (and lack of education) can significantly impact on ones score.

Do people mean to dispute the claims regarding how opression of group seems to have a more significant impact on IQ than ethnic groups?
Do people mean to dispute the claims regarding remedial programs and increase in IQ?
Are people going to argue for those or are they just going to write off the links as words from the 'raving liberals'?
Also would be interesting to consider the role of self-fulfilling prophecy. If people are told they are smart they will do better than if they are told they are stupid. Experiments have found that teachers treat their students very differently depending on whether they are told they are 'smart' or 'stupid'.

Sigh.

Back to the nature / nurture debate again... Things just aren't that simple. If you really are interested I'd suggest Fiona Cowie "What's Within? Nativism Reconsidered" and also Paul Griffiths book on emotions... Title escapes me... Both are empirically informed but even better they engage in sophisticated analysis of the empirical information... Something that seems to be lacking from people who are taught facts without being taught how to think.

Sigh.