the thing about beliefs

I'm reading Lewis Raven Wallace's book Radical Unlearning: The Art and Science of Creating Change from Within. In the intro, Wallace says something that immediately made me think of this debate:

"Belief, as it turns out, isn't made of rational, scientific stuff--even when we think our views are based solely in fact, emotion, connection, and community all play huge roles in determining humans' opinions....Our beliefs emerge from a murky zone of emotion and spirit...And beliefs are shaped in community, through culture; hammering angry, alienated people with fact-checks and scientific studies didn't even come close..."

The first dog-training class I took was a balanced one. It made sense to me, and I bought the premise. And that belief held fast, even when a friend of mine showed me studies that seemed to support a force-free approach. I eyed those studies with suspicion--not because I actually understood at the time that they were not based on solid scientific processes, but because they did not align with my experiences and previously held beliefs. [Only later did I revisit them and decide that they were not well-conducted studies.]

I still prefer balanced training. I still think the premise holds up. And I still think I'm on the "correct" side of this debate. But I also think we won't get anywhere when we characterize FF folks as overly emotional, stupid, or propaganda-buying. I think we have to acknowledge that humans (ALL OF US) are emotional creatures. We have to be able to acknowledge that the impulse towards a method that does not appear to hurt our dogs is in line with how humans operate in community.