In each of the areas of knowledge, sense perception, reason, and emotion have differing values as evidence.

For instance, in mathematics reason is the sole evidence for claims and counterclaims. When mathematicians propose theses, they use past laws and theorems to enforce their ideas; emotion and sense perception play no role. This is similar in history as well. When historians try to prove their view on a past event, they use primary resources: speeches, statistics, and dates. Utilizing sense perception is futile because historians cannot travel back in time in order to hear, smell, or see past events. In addition, emotion belittles a historian's argument by making him or her seem childish. Everyone listens to a historian without bias because they can provide a clear argument without being swayed by their emotions. Likewise, the human and natural sciences utilize reason as strong evidence, but unlike history and mathematics sense perception plays a major role as well. In the natural sciences, scientists use their eyes, fingers, and at times their tongues in experiments. For example, when testing whether a substance is a Bronsted-Lowry acid, a scientist can reason that the acid donates a proton and therefore, formulate an experiment using that idea. However, a scientist could know that an acid tastes sour and through a taste test, prove the substance's acidity. Thus, sense perception is necessary in the natural sciences in order to argue certain ideas. This is also true in the human sciences as many experiments in psychology involve the test subjects five senses. Conversely, the arts and ethics rely heavily on emotion. What is good art? A piece of art can be considered a masterpiece if it moves its viewers. Good art does not have to be logically appealing to the eye; it just needs to be able to invoke happiness or anger. Reason is useless in art because a person may consider a cubist painting by Picasso a masterpiece while condemning another painting utilizing the same style. In ethics, emotion plays such an important role that it crushes claims backed by logic easily. Juries pardon killers based on the fact that he or she looks pitiful instead of focusing on the fact that they are a danger to society. Also, children and teenagers are usually pitied even when they commit heinous crimes due to empathy or sympathy. Many lawyers utilize the swirling emotions in court to justify their case. Consequently, each way of knowing has its own values in the various areas of knowledge. Evidence does not have to be expressed in words. As discussed earlier, evidence in the natural sciences can be something intangible as heat or taste. When evaluating a person's mood, words are not always needed as justification. The look on his or her face is more than enough. A furled brow implies anger and red eyes imply grief as he or she was crying. Also, a person can prove whether his or her friend is upset through listening to that friend's voice. A high pitched and shady voice can be more than enough to prove that friend's battered emotional state. Therefore, words are one way to express evidence, but not the only way.