In an earlier post for this blog I challenged some of the conventional thinking about the relationship between scientific evidence and policy. One way of summarizing my argument is to say that, in a democracy, we must acknowledge that a range of factors other than scientific evidence may, and some might argue should, influence public policy. In this same vein, my University of Ottawa colleague, Michael Orsini has been thinking about the role that emotions play in how to discuss and develop public policy. For a window on his research see this recent guest blog post.