"In this paper I argue that despite the general importance of emotion in the science of the mind and the ever increasing pace of research on emotion, knowledge about emotion has accumulated more slowly than for other comparable concepts, such as memory or attention, because the acceptance of these commonsense assumptions are not warranted by the available empirical evidence. I then consider what moving beyond a commonsense view might look like and what it would mean for the scientific study of emotion." Lisa Feldman Barrett

The pic: "the black hole" by Amsterdamned:

Despite its interior being invisible, a black hole may reveal its presence through an interaction with matter that lies in orbit outside its event horizon.

I think one reason that so little apparent advance in our understanding is due to conceptual muddles rather than lack of scientific advances. Indeed, for the latter, neuroscience has made tremendous leaps and bounds, yet the whole thing still does not hold together. One explanation is the enduring legacy of opposing 'reason' to 'emotions', and the opposition is value laden. The most interesting work on sorting out concepts is perhaps most associated with philosopher Robert Solomon, and neuroscientist Antonio Damasio.

One explanation is the enduring legacy of opposing 'reason' to 'emotions', and the opposition is value laden.

Scientists are still human and as such they have their own prejudices. One of them is seeing 'emotions' as not good for progress in their field. Which is true, but it does not mean emotions should not be studied either.