"Don't be so irrational!"  Using these words in one's personal life,
            
 towards one's spouse, is an excellent way to add fuel to an already heated
            
 argument. In the workplace, rational reasoning can often be deployed with
            
 much success.  But not always so in the personal sphere of one's life.
            
       As a supervisor over a car assembly line at General Motors, I have
            
 come to appreciate this fact.  For instance, if the line seems to be
            
 operating in an inefficient fashion, one must consider the possible reasons
            
 for this inefficiency in a step-by-step mannerâ€"is it a human or a
            
 mechanical problem, for example'  A supervisor uses the scientific method
            
 to target the problem and find a solution.  It has been said that "rational
            
 thinking for developing claims about reality involves the use of the valid
            
 reasoning such as logic and science for determining the truth about
            
 reality," and "science attempts to use to determine the truth about
            
 reality" by explaining that certain aspects of perceived reality are false
            
 except for one hypothesis, after the process of elimination of all false
            
 proposed solutions. (Hinrichs, 2004)
            
       In plain English, if one worker seems to be slowing down the cogs of
            
 the line, one examines the working procedures of him, her, and him, until
            
 the supervisor finds out, through eliminating the possible culprits the
            
 worker is operating in an inefficient fashion.  When the firm I work for
            
 designs a new product or gives advice to consumers like "never leave your
            
 child unattended in a hot car," on its Website, it too is operating
            
 according to rational reasoning, assuming that the objective of safety is
            
 paramount, and that all operations must be subsumed to that rational goal
            
 of the preservation of family and one's self. (GM, 2004)
            
       One's experiences at home, however, do not always operate according
            
 to the scientific principles of rationality, as any father ...