Forum:Dirk Steele said something/Archive1

When argument fails then censorship prevails

RationalWiki is doomed. It has been taken over by ideologists that reject science for the prevailing views of majority rule. It is not possible to question the current paradigm (despite the efforts of Kuhn and Popper). It is just a groupthink ideology dominated by the USA and any disagreement is countered by censorship and blocks. Why you would ever think that you could replace Wikipedia, when your members even disagree with 'falsifibility' as a condition to demarcate science from pseudoscience, and when your 'ideals' have been so subverted?. You have become a pipe dream fantasy dominated by 'new new age' cranks. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Great! Can you leave now? LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 00:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

no. *pets unicorn while rubbing crystals and singing Kumbayah * *Peace bro* Hamster (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

It's already been explained to you patiently by a dozen people, including a doctoral student focusing in Philosophy of Science, that Popper and falsifibility is not the standard for what is and what is not science.

That aside, you are blocked not because of what you write, but because of your writing style, which has been explained to you time and again. And you are not censored. Your edits to the articles are undone because they fundamentally conflict with the current academic consensus, and are done without the slightest attempt at sourcing. When you go to the talkpages to defend yourself, you spend half of your time ranting about how psychiatry is pseudoscience because you don't like/understand the evidences of the existence of mental disorders, and the other half insulting RW and the user base. And don't you claim you're only responding to it, because you spent your first few months here insulting RW and myself personally because you don't like the scientific consensus on mental illness.

Finally, if you hate being here so much, then leave. I know you keep saying that you love it here, aside from all the stuff on Szasz, psychiatry, and mental illness denial, but you never talk about/edit anything else. Anything. If you love it here so much, try ignoring the stuff you don't like. Or just fuck off. Either way, the rest of us will be happy.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I have not blocked you to censor your arguments, because frankly, your arguments are stupid and I don't read them. I blocked you today because you were rude to my friend. And if you continue to behave that way, I will do it again. Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 00:40, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

"I blocked you today because you were rude to my friend" Since when was being rude to people a bock reason on RW? Or is there more to this than I am aware of?--Bob^{"I thought this was supposed to be "Rational" Wiki?."} 08:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Where majority rules stupidity rules. If you know he was rude, then you obviously read his arguments. Your excuse is, therefore, stupid. Very frankly said, too.-- Brasov 00:56, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope.Only his edit comments. And now I shall block you too. Theory of Practice Still tryin' to figure it all out. 02:11, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Where did we say falsifiability isn't a standard of science? Seems that's always been something we upheld. --"Shut up, Brx." 02:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Falsifiability

including a doctoral student focusing in Philosophy of Science, that Popper and falsifibility is not the standard for what is and what is not science. Actually, I might debate that if I cared enough, but let's avoid that for now. My problem with Dirk is that he denies the scientific accuracy of the theory of mind wholesale, demanding that we stop using the conventional notation for describing other people's mental states, going so far as to deny that we even have evidence of mental states. IMHO this is what Platonic Realism and dualism does to a person's rationality. It is true that scientific theories are accurate only insofaras they are useful. "Useful" and "accurate" are indistinguishable, and thus theory of mind is both useful and scientifically accurate. Dirk disagrees here - somewhere - and I'm not quite sure where. I stopped caring when he said that it's not "meaningful" or "scientifically justified" or some shit to say "He wants a cup of coke". LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 00:49, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't remember who it was, the editors comment was basically (at least to me) that there are too many things that Popper's school of thought would say are pseudoscience (Geology, most modern physics), and things that are pseudoscience that get in as science (astrology) for Popper's school of thought to be in-of-itself useful, and a lot of the time scientists don't even operate under the assumptions that Popper makes, but falsifiability (where possible) is still the best way to know things in science--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 00:58, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I too have some problems with some of the specifics of Popper, but if you're making a factual claim about our shared reality, and if you cannot give specific observations which are claimed to be likely, and other observations which are claimed to be unlikely, for a real person or even for a hypothetical observer, then I don't know what you're talking about, it's not science, and it's not even cognitively meaningful. It is not even wrong. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:07, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the explanation from the doctoral student was in the talkpage for this essay (it's a Dirk Steel special, sorry about that). Honestly, too lazy/indifferent to go find it.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 01:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I've had some discussions like this with Nebuchadnezzar, where he largely schooled me. I think there's a lot of subtly here, a lot of it because of very pedantic semantic arguments where different people understand slightly different meanings of the terms involved. I don't have a stake in the game whether 1- astrology is science and falsified science, or 2- astrology is not science because it's falsified. However, I will argue that unfalsifiable factual claims of our shared reality are not science bullshit [edit] precisely because they are unfalsifiable, and furthermore than such claims are word salad. To the proverbial dissenter: get back to me when your claim implies that certain observations are likely, and certain other observations are unlikely, because otherwise I really have no clue what you're talking about. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I think a distinction has to be made between using falsifiability as a criterion for a solid theory and using it to demarcate "science" and "not science." The former can be accepted without accepting the latter. See Larry Laudan's criticism of falsification, for example. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 03:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I'm not in a position to agree or disagree. I don't think this semantic quibbling is terribly important. "Not science" vs "bullshit" vs "bad science". Whatever labels the community wishes to use. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:49, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and thanks, good read. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

1) I'm not a doctoral student anymore. I'm the real deal, baby.

2) If Dirk's replies were more intelligible, the discussion might have advanced further. As Nebuchadnezzar points out, falsifiability might fail as a solution to the demarcation problem, but that doesn't mean it's not a valuable notion. I think it's useful as a proxy for a demarcation criterion. I also think falsifiability is in general a virtue (in a claim).TallMan (talk) 06:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Even if mental states were observable, the decision on their pathology is done by the criteria "abnormality" and "harm". The latter is often ignored. So you take a normal guy and throw him into a snake pit. His normal behaviour is now abnormal in this forced situation and will cause him irreversible harm, like death. Diagnostic: a fatal case of ADHD. A snake pit is not a suitable environment for a man, but is school for a child? or an 9-to-5 cubicle for an adult?-- Brasov 01:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I mean, for fuck's sake. No one does this. They look at one child compared with all the other little brats in the room, and say "is he acting more bratty than the rest?" They look at people who have sad things happen, and ask "why do some people react to sadnees by wanting to die, others wanting to kill, and others never coming out of it - when most people jsut cry for a while. You're arguments are childish. Your behavior borish. so let Rational Wiki die the death we deserve, and "move along. nothing to see here".Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 01:33, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

why do some people react to sadnees by wanting to die, others wanting to kill, and others never coming out of it. Because sadness is a state of mind that correlates will all that and even more, but it's not the cause of all that. That's how misguided that approach is... it's asking the wrong question. Get it yet, fuck-saker?-- Brasov 01:59, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Liberal: I agree that discussion of Phil of S often get into very fine point discussions, but that happens with a lot of things, and I think that a good understanding of Phil of S is important for researchers.

Brasov: The fuck are you on about?--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 01:38, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

@Godot, are you assuming that's a sock of Dirk? Someone mentioned he was just (temp?) banned? Ah. And why the f does he have a picture of Putin in his sig? LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

To give you something to whine about.-- Brasov 02:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Who is whining?--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 03:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk's insatiable desire to find shortcuts to categorise whole disciplines of research as science or pseudo-science will eventually be punishment enough. Tielec01 (talk) 11:01, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Godot says "They look at one child compared with all the other little brats in the room, and say "is he acting more bratty than the rest?" Then they decide the child must suffer from an incurable brain disease (no scans or nuffin) and stuff him full of toxic drugs to control him. You call that a science? --Dirk Steele (talk) 15:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

LiberalOf says that I dispute the Theory of Mind? How do you surmise this? I am no duelist either. The mind is not a physical object, it is a concept and I argue that concepts cannot be diseased except metaphorically. Thus the term 'mental health' is pseudoscientific. --Dirk Steele (talk) 15:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I have always thought that falsifiability was core to the scientific method. Hamilton wrote about the fall of Popper specifically to show his pet theories could now be considered a science. I am happy to be proved wrong by someone with more education in this area and so I backed down and accepted this. --Dirk Steele (talk) 15:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

"They look at one child compared with all the other little brats in the room, and ... stuff him full of toxic drugs to control him. You call that a science?"

No, I call that a strawman fantasy strung up by conspiracy theorists. What if that kid really is behaving in a disruptive way? What if those medications help him live better, instead of struggling with things like paying attention and interacting with other people that his peers don't struggle with as much? "Toxic" is a fun little word that alt-meds like to use, but when they use it about a medication it really means "I don't like it or understand it," not "it's dangerous." And of course, talking about "controlling" children with "toxic" medications lets you impugn the character of the every mental health professional without having to name names or even prove anything! And of course you don't mention the behavioral therapy and skills learning that those children also receive, in addition to being given medication. Wouldn't want to argue against ACTUAL psychiatry, now would we? The straw man works just fine for you!

Let me see if I've got your argument down:

1. The mind is a concept. (No, its an emergent property of the brain that we talk about as a concept.)

2. Concepts are metaphysical in nature (Fine)

3. Metaphysical things cannot get diseases (No, but the physical things generating them can get them.)

4. And therefore mental illness does not exist. (And then when a schizophrenic homeless guy pees on you, you explain it away...how...?)

Now let me see if I can use your logic to prove other things!

1. The mind is a concept.

2. Concepts are metaphysical in nature

3. Metaphysical things cannot hold an opinion.

4. A mind cannot hold an opinion.

All of the bad arguments start from premise 1, and the underlying assumption that we are controlled by something that doesn't exist in the physical realm. Your particular argument also benefits from ignoring that many mental illnesses are psychological in nature, and we define them by how they interfere in a person's normal life and integration with society. Even if the brain is not malfunctioning on a biochemical level that we can verify, a person's emotional state can still prevent them from leading a normal life and require treatment. I'll take your word for it that you're not a dualist, you actually sound more like a solipsist.

(Disclosure: Yeah, I was that kid in therapy and on meds, and I've been that kid all my life. And yes, I know anecdotes do not make evidence, but denying the existence of mental illness and the validity of psychiatry as a medical and scientific field is ridiculous. My life would be a shambles right now if I didn't have access to mental health care at several points in my life.) RachelW (talk) 18:17, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Stay strong sister.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 18:35, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Rachel, for the lengthy lucid posting. One of my anecdotes has to do with a brief spell on Thorazine in my middle twenties. I believe the pill-pushers at the university health service were doing what they thought was right, but wow, the simplest interactions felt like swimming through corn syrup. I don't think that facet of treatment was useful at all. Ad-hoc support from random housemates worked much better, more so since they were just carrying on with their own lives. My first wife, the RN, once mentioned the phenothiazine shuffle seen in long-term psych patients' gait. Those kinds of things may help with understanding the butt-hurt (isn't that what the young folk call it?) surrounding perceived wholesale administration of psych meds.

All is not dismal. The present Mrs. C. has a sister who is a psych nurse working with family/child social services, and I've had some interesting chats with her about treating attachment disorders. There may be hope... Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 19:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to debate here Rachel (I have a forum discussion) but if you are saying that psychiatry can cure a brain disease with talk therapy (or even prayer!) and is therefore scientific then you are promoting woo quackery. Supposing a kid at school is being abused at home and shows behavioural issues then you propose his best medicine is a class II scheduled drug. Sorry I don't know where you are coming from. This paper starts to address the issues. http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Bracken-et-al.pdf Dirk Steele (talk) 20:16, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I like that DS keeps alternating between denying even the remote possibility of a biochemical origin to mental disorders, to saying that talk therapy cannot treat a biochemical disorder, all while ignoring that there are multiple causes of mental disorders with different treatments based on the cause. --Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 20:56, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Hamilton you really do not have a clue do you? If you ever read my stuff you should know that I do not deny the possibility. In fact I have stated that neurosyphilis, epilepsy, sleeping sickness etc have in the past been defined as mental illnesses that were once treated by psychiatrists (with talk therapy thrown in too!). As soon as a biochemical cause is found then the condition is moved from psychiatry to a proper scientific based medical discipline such as neurology. Robert Sapolski currently is researching whether schizophrenia is caused by a cat toxoplasmosis - despite being thoroughly researched in the 70s by the nutter E Fuller Torrey, and who I suspect is providing the funding. If true the condition will be removed from psychiatry and their thorazine brain disabling drugs and talk therapy. Of course if homosexuals where shown to have a different brain you would call them diseased! You say different treatments based on the cause but there is no known biological aetiology for any mental disease. Which is why they are called 'mental' illness. Hamilton - why the hell are you even on this site? This is RationalWiki for God's sake.

I don't know exactly what you're trying to argue against, Dirk. You say that biochemical treatments cannot possibly affect the "mind," because it is a metaphysical concept. You say that talk therapy can't help "brain diseases," presumably because diseases are physically based and can't be cured by talking outside of the placebo effect. You chose to ignore what I wrote about your logic, so I'm assuming you either didn't read it or still believe what you said. Are you honestly asserting that mental disorders are non-existent, and talk therapy can't help anyone with mental issues? What the hell do you want us to do, Dirk?

"Supposing a kid at school is being abused at home and shows behavioural issues then you propose his best medicine is a class II scheduled drug."

Again, another bullshit straw man. If that kid is being abused and has behavioral issues, you remove him from that environment, talk through his behavioral issues and prescribe medication if necessary. Based on observations of that kid's behavior, they will change or adjust his medications and therapy regimen. Its exactly like any other field of medicine, except that we cannot usually directly observe the cause of the illness. Yet. Oh, and that "Schedule II drug" you mentioned? I'm assuming you're talking about Ritalin or Adderall? Yeah, it sure sounds a lot scarier when you call it a Schedule II drug, but those drugs are a godsend to the people who need them.

And if you want to talk about woo advocacy, how about denigrating a field of medicine because its changed some of its ideas and treatments in the last 50 years? You're an idiot if you think that learning the physical basis for schizophrenia and other mental disorders is going to automatically remove the need for talk therapy.

Tell me again, what would you do for that little abused boy, Dirk? RachelW (talk) 22:05, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I would remove him from his abusive environment and provide support to help him. Not to tell him his feelings are the result of a brain disease and caused by some kind of chemical imbalance. Not drug him to the eyeballs.. ritalin to make him pay attention, anti-psychotics to cope with the psychosis caused by the ritalin, and antidepressants to deal with his sorrow? Is that what you would 'prescribe'. Surely not. How abou this study? http://www.ecmaj.ca/content/184/7/755.full Although I know no-one bothers to read the stuff I use to support my case. Of course if you take the view 'when a schizophrenic homeless guy pees on you, you explain it away...how...?' you are just showing your prejudice and your predeliction for stimatisation. I have met many many schizophrenics but none have pissed on me yet. Dirk Steele (talk) 22:36, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Drugs such as Ritalin (which I'll refer to as methylin hereon out), are not antipsychotics. Methylin is an amphetamine. And no psychiatrist (that should keep his license to practice) will wantonly prescribe three drugs to treat their own side effects without serious consideration, patient consent and knowledge, and a long introductory test period (of at least a week). That is a strawman.--"Shut up, Brx." 00:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I know what Ritalin is. It is Methylphenidate but it is not amphetamine (Adderall is) but related. I have taken it from time to time. Read the warnings about it here. http://www.drugs.com/pro/methylin.html . If you do not understand that kids are being prescribed multiple drugs see the PBS documentary 'The Medicated Child'. Amphetamine and related drugs are known to cause psychosis and anti-psychotics are often prescribed alongside. The USA consumes 90% of Ritalin. GSK was recently fined 3 billion dollars for 'bribing' doctors to give anti-depressants to kids. Straw man? No. Do your own research. Dirk Steele (talk) 22:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The basic problem

Dirk is simply pulling a giant no true Scotsman and defining neurology as the parts of psychiatry which are obviously effective and which he can't really deny. Then whenever someone shows him an instance of psychiatry working, he can claim it's neurology (or some other discipline).

Dirk can't be convinced, but for others, here is an argument:

1. Premise: Mental states are not under complete control of the individual.
2. Premise: Interaction with the environment, especially with other people, affects your mental state.
3. Premise: Some mental states can be harmful, e.g. depression, and this is what we call "mental illness".
4. Given 2 and 3, if a person is in a harmful mental state, it should be possible to move them to a more beneficial one by interacting with them.
5. Given 4, "talk therapy" can work - at least some of the time for some mental illnesses.

Now I'm interested in learning which of the premises Dirk doesn't accept. --Tweenk (talk) 21:55, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Reminds me of the "operational science" nonsense that AIG uses to differentiate between the parts of science they can safely slag on, and the parts, like cell phones and antibiotics, that would garner them more ridicule than they already get if they tried to deny them. RachelW (talk) 22:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think Neurologists would be happy as being defined as a part of Psychiatry which works. Neurologists deal with scientific observable disease/trauma within the brain and uses scans x-rays etc . A psychiatrist never actually looks at the brain. Pray tell me what psychiatric intervention actually worked? Neurology works.

1. I agree. Being heartbroken can cause immense suffering but noone is suggesting that it is a mental disease to be cured by drugs. (Yet! - I predict Pharma will be working on this soon.

2. I agree. Much distress can is caused by environmental and social stresses. This is not a medical condition or brain disease to be cured with drugs.

3. You may call human distress a mental or brain disease but calling it that does not make it scientifically true.

4. I agree. Interaction and understanding and compassion are paramount to my position. Calling it a brain disease is stigmatisation and totally decontextualises an individual's experience - after all it is a just disease just like diabetes or measles to be treated by a drug.

5. I agree. Talk therapy (depending on the type) is key. But how can talking or even prayer cure a medical scientific disease? Can talking cure cancer or diabetes? This idea is woo and quackery. These 'conditions' are not diseases, they are the result of medicalising the human condition, and to claim so is pure pseudoscience. Psychiatrists want to define different brains as 'diseased brains' and want to cut out little bits or zap them with electric currents or disable them with drugs that actually make brains abnormal. Quacks the lot of them. But the power they have and the damage they do beats homeopaths and CAM therapies hands down. Just read up on the 'side effects' of anti-psychotics. Side-effects? An abuse of language.

Learn anything? Dirk Steele (talk) 22:19, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I learnt

• you haven't got a clue how to format a discussion on a wiki.
• You don't know the difference between suffering from depression and being distressed.

Innocent Bystander (talk) 22:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry about formats. Shit software requires users to conform to shit software developers. I should know cos I have written enough in my time.

Tell me the difference between depression and extreme emotional distress then. Thanks. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, some physical diseases and disorders are believed to have a total mental component derived from the stresses and strains of everyday living such as back pain and high blood pressure or headaches etc, this is not woo or quackery, we have scientific evidence to support it, which appear to be partly related to stresses in everyday life amongst other mental factors. Have you never looked at psychosomatic medicine? Are you claiming that is woo as well? Forests (talk) 23:05, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I have not seen any scientific evidence to suggest that emotional distress causes back pain that can be seen in a scan. Can you cite? Even if this is true is the cure a back operation or an attempt to resolve a persons distress. Which path do you consider medical? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:13, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I learned that you have a strong preference for spurious arguments and straw men. I've also learned that despite your assertions to the contrary, you ARE a dualist, in denial, because you can't seem to grasp the concept that talking through your problems and taking psychotropic medication are two ways of treating the same thing.

I am a dualist in denial? Or am I a latent homosexual? Ha! Talking and drugging. Are they really the same thing? Really? You must explain this because in medical science this would be considered woo. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• Your response to point 1 is irrelevant. We are not talking about normal, situational emotional states, and nobody is trying to treat normal sadness as a mental illness. Straw man.

If you read the DSM5 then bereavement from say the death of a spouse or child is considered to be a 'mental' disease to be cured by drugs. Not a straw man is it? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• Your response to the second point is similarly irrelevant because again, we are not talking about normal emotional states, but ones which make it difficult or impossible to function.

When a person finds it difficult to function with everyday life then you call it a medical disease and drug them up? Nonsense. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• Your answer to premise 3 is another dodge, because "human distress" is not the same thing as "depression." Being sad over a breakup is not the same as being entirely unable to feel happiness or optimism. We define mental states that seriously obstruct normal social function and wellbeing as mental illnesses. This is a statement of definition not subject to your opinion regarding those mental states.

These conditions have nothing to do with illness or a disease. It is the result of medicalising normal human experiences. Which is pseudoscience. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• Your fourth point is another straw man; nobody but you calls it a "brain disease," and nobody but you is asserting that we will automatically treat any mental illness with medication.

Nobody but me calls it a brain disease? You must read my forum discussion on 'psychiatry is a pseudoscience' particularly the part 'where you are going wrong'. If you look at any mental health site APA or NIMH, or even the DSM then the concept of mental illness as a 'brain disease' is the norm. Where are you looking? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• Your fifth point is an argument from ignorance. We treat bio-chemically induced mental illnesses with a combination of medication and therapy because it works better than either of the two alone. We use both because your mental health is a product of both your brain chemistry and your emotional state. A person who lives with depression for their entire life cannot simply take medication and go on with their life as though nothing happened. Not without difficulty, anyway. Mental illnesses affect our attitudes and our habits and what constitutes "normal" for us, and therapy is an important part in making sure that the patient doesn't relapse.

Maybe 'mental health' is due to the environment we are in. Which is why blacks and immigrants are 4 x more likely to have a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Explain that. Of course blacks are more diseased? Where else in medical science is the idea that therapy is useful to prevent a relapse? Cancer? Measles? Strokes? (Of course do not start spouting about smoking and cancer). What constitutes 'normal' for you? Is it the same as my definition? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Tell me Dirk, do you also distrust surgeons who "cut up" people and make their bodies "abnormal?" And do you find that impugning the characters of entire branches of medicine works in debates? RachelW (talk) 23:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Well I do 'distrust' plastic surgeons who provide bigger breasts because this is a sociological issue not a medical one. I do not distrust surgeons who attempt to provide a better normal functioning to those that suffer the abnormality of cancer cells or heart disease. Psychiatrists are equivalent to the plastic surgeons in this case. And yes I have no difficulty in impugning homeopaths. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Answering from earlier. The difference between being distressed and being depressed is fundamentally one of cause. If your upset because your cat died, that is an appropriate emotional reaction. If you can't function because "all the laughter got too loud" then that's, possibly, depression. Very different. Innocent Bystander (talk) 23:20, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Very different according to you. Not to me. I can understand the metaphor you used. Is this science? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:30, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Replying to Dirk. It seems that:

1. You reject using the term "mental illness" to label a persistent, harmful mental state. Your primary argument seems to rely on the redefinition of the term "illness" to exclude things that can be cured or at least managed by talking or other social interactions. This is a pointless argument about words. Regardless of whether we call depression a "disease", an "illness", a "condition" or a "mental problem", it still severely affects a person's quality of life and can be deadly (suicide). Moreover, claiming that something is not an illness just because the intervention which can cure it doesn't seem very medical or scientific to you is completely arbitrary. For example, chronic pain can be cured by hypnosis, and there is strong evidence for it. To most people hypnosis doesn't sound very medical, yet nobody would say that chronic pain is therefore not an illness.

Homosexuality used to be considered a harmful mental state (because it was a criminal offense!). And yes I reject this notion. How you define a condition such as ADHD or depression or hysteria or even drapetemania then conditions how you want to treat it. My beef is that the definition of human distress as a medical disease resulting in medical treatments such as lobotomy, ECT, or drugging with spurious chemicals is not scientific and ignores the environmental cause totally. It is you that is redefining the word 'disease'. So define what you actually mean by disease. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:38, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

1. You reject using drugs to help those affected by these harmful mental states. There is an argument to be had about doctors overprescribing psychoactive drugs instead of using other interventions and treatments, because it requires less effort on their part. However, to claim that all such drugs are always bad is simply wrong. If drugs can alter a person's mental state (they obviously can), they can be used in therapy. Getting back to the example in the previous point, although some chronic pain can be cured with hypnosis, no one would suggest drugs should therefore never be used to manage it, and that pharmacological pain management is pseudoscientific.

--Tweenk (talk) 23:54, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes I question how psychotropic drugs are used. Of course their use is prevalent in institutions that attempt to control human behaviour. In prisons, old peoples care homes, child foster homes, schools, military bases, not to mention mental hospitals. What psychiatry does (as opposed to what it claims) is to manage human behaviour disapproved of by 'authority'. I do not reject drugs and I have used them. What I reject is the idea that they cure a medical disease in the same way that anti-biotics destroy bacteria or how insulin manages diabetes. Do you know how anti-psychotics work? Explain to me this knowledge. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Typically, they regulate dopamine and serotonin. I should note that antipsychotics are not used lightly. Only schizophrenics and people with bipolar disorder are given them. Efficacy is not questioned (at least not by anybody who knows what they're talking about). Rather, side effects and the ethics of forcing such medication on patients are the true debates on this matter. --"Shut up, Brx." 00:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

'Regulate'? In what manner do they balance an abnormality? What are the scientific measurements used? What effect do they have on glutamate receptors? Can you cite anything here or are you spouting pseudoscientific claptrap? In the UK risperidone is regularly injected into people by force in order to allow them 'care in the community'..i.e a place to live. Who is insane here? Efficacy is not questioned? By whom? Ok let us discuss the ethics of forced treatment. Only the medical speciality of psychiatry relies on forced treatment. (Voluntary treatment is fine unless one decides to object.. then it becomes forced. Ha! Dirk Steele (talk) 01:03, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The biochemistry stuff I'll cover later. As for forced treatment, it's administered only in the case of a patient's condition causing them to be a harm to themselves or others. It's a pretty clear brightline, and it's unique to psychiatry because psychiatry uniquely addresses mental disorders that impact decision making. A bipolar individual in a manic phase is reckless, and will not heed advice, and will continue whatever behaviors they are prone to as a result of their mania. A schizophrenic thinks with alien logic, and can be incapable of making rational decisions. Someone who merely hears voices will not have treatment forced upon them (excepting cases of medical custody, which is usually granted to family members). Someone who obeys voices telling them to slash up their neighbors will almost definitely be forced treatment. Take a look at the case of Jared Lee Loughner.--"Shut up, Brx." 01:20, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Why not cover it now? A 'pretty clear brightline to you' but not to others as shown by Mindfreedom, PsychRights, MadPride etc etc. Psychiatry addresses a mental disorder that impacts decision making? You think I don't make good decisions based on my experience? A 'bipolar' is reckless? So are mountain climbers. Taking risks should never be diagnosed as a disease. No-one will have treatment forced upon them except when family members and psychiatrists want it? The case of Jared Lee? To quote wikipedia 'Loughner's life began to unravel after his high school girlfriend broke up with him' Is this a scientific medical disease? Breivik was defined as psychiatrists as being a paranoid schizophrenic and by other psychiatrists as being totally sane, The fact is that psychiatrists have no idea how to even define this 'disease'. Imagine cancer specialists having a similar argument. It does not happen. You are talking bollocks. Seriously you are talking pseudoscientific crap. Dirk Steele (talk) 01:58, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

The last time I engaged with such anti scientific crap was with homeopathic creationists. Dirk Steele (talk) 02:05, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

You just admitted you lost this discussion

I have two things to say about this discussion. One scientific, and one moral.

Firstly, at some point in this pile of garbage you created you said:

“”If you read the DSM5 then bereavement from say the death of a spouse or child is considered to be a 'mental' disease to be cured by drugs. Not a straw man is it?

Actually, this is a strawman. Now, I'll admit I haven't read the DSMV, but the DSMIVTR requires that the patient be experiencing the symptoms for 4 weeks continuously without apparent cause. So, if you were bereaved from the lose of a spouse, guess what, that's not a clinical disorder. That, that is where talk therapy comes into play. You seem to be under this false impression that any condition which brings a person to a mental health practitioner can be treated with either talk therapy or some form of biological treatment like medication. That's not true. For conditions (for lack of a better term) with an obvious social/environmental cause (like being sad after the death of a relative) you're only going to get talk therapy. For conditions which don't have an obvious social/environmental cause (like just being sad all the time for no reason) then you're going to get some form of biological treatment. This is literally psych 101. You just clearly demonstrated a complete and total lack of understanding of what is being talked about. You have never read the DSMV, never read the DSMIV, or any other psychiatric manual, or ever even taken a class about mental health. You have just demonstated a lack of understanding so profound for now on whenever you make a post, I am literally just going to link to this paragraph. You are a completely uninformed child, and you need to leave, right now.

Perhaps you should read the DSM5 and the criticisms of it before you spout total crap. You can link to this paragraph anytime because it shows that you are just plain stupid. 4 weeks is fine for grief but anything longer means you have a biological brain disease? You cannot be serious!!! Dirk Steele (talk) 09:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

As for the moral issue, lets turn to this comment:

“”A 'bipolar' is reckless? So are mountain climbers. Taking risks should never be diagnosed as a disease.

This is a horribly insulting comment. Now, I have a condition called cyclothymia, or atleast I've been tentatively diagnosed with it. Cyclothymia is basically an extremely mild form of bipolar disorder. I was tentatively diagnosed because of the way I was diagnosed. I talked to a mental health worker, and he agreed that it seemed like mild bipolar, or cyclothymia. As we were talking we noticed a few things I had done differently, and basically as long as I keep working out intensely a few times a week I'm fine and don't need medication, so I've never gone in for formal diagnosis or treatment. Now, what I find so offensive about the above comment is what happened that pushed me to talk to this mental health worker in the first place. I stayed up till about 4 in the morning one night doing something that seemed extremely important at the time. Then I woke up two hours late, realized I missed the first half of a class. As I was driving to my next class I kept thinking that I was worthless, and started to consider killing myself by driving into a phone pole. This is so far from normal that to deny there is something wrong with me is pretty fucking insulting. And I could go on about why what you just said is so offensive, but it's getting hard for me to type out of my overwhelming desire to beat the fuck out of you.

You were up til 4 in the morning and missed the first half of a class? How terrible of you. You must have a brain disease! Cyclothymia? What nonsense. A made up 'disease'. You experience highs and lows? I would welcome the fact that you experience life to such a high degree when other people cannot. Of course feeling so low comes with the territory but as a diagnosed bi-polar I would not change for the world. Keep taking the meds and then you do not have to feel anything ever again. (although the side effects can be very disabling). Dirk Steele (talk) 09:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

So, really, shut the fuck up--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 03:17, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

When the argument fails censorship prevails. Dirk Steele (talk) 09:17, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, I banned you for the night for being a stubborn, obtuse, insulting crank. Hopefully, you'll take the hint and leave permanently, since we're all hopeless over here anyway. Oh, bipolar people are reckless, just like mountain climbers? Are you fucking joking? Do you really think that we diagnose bipolar solely on how "risky" someone's behavior is? You're not even arguing anymore, you're just pretending to not understand basic facts about mental health because you have no argument to make yourself.

You've already conceded that biochemical treatment can affect mental states, and that talk therapy can affect mental states, you just don't like calling it "psychiatry." Go to Wiki4CAM with your shit. RachelW (talk) 03:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes of course you banned me. I do not expect anything else from a rabid emotionalist like you. Psychiatrists partly define bi-polar as being reckless - that is part of the diagnosis. I am the one who states that this concept as a 'disease' is unscientific. A 'pathological gambler' does not suffer from a disease. He is just a loser. (Pathological gamblers who win do not get diagnosed as 'mental'.

I haven't been participating much because I identified this as a topicality argument early on, combined with a Dan Dennett Deepity, and topicality arguments (aka arguments over definition) are always the worst. In short, I think Dirk recognized that we have mental states, that it's meaningful to talk about mental states, and that directed conversation can change mental states in a predictable way. I furthermore think that Dirk wants to define "disease" in some special way which specifically excludes "undesirable mental states" from being diseases. Throw on interesting results derived by equivocation, and you get a Dan Dennett deepity - maybe. Annoying all around. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 06:41, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

You may identify my argument as 'Deepity'. That is because you do not comprehend the notion that disease has a specific meaning within science which you reject. You have never heard of Rudolf Virchow? Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicalization. And to say that talk therapy can cure disease is unscientific woo. You really think that 'prayer' can cure cancer? Surely not. Dirk Steele (talk) 09:27, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Which is why we don't call them "brain diseases." Do I have to ban you again, Mr. Crank? RachelW (talk) 17:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Who do you mean 'we'? On my forum discussion I am lambasted by RW users telling me that mental illnesses are brain diseases. Dirk Steele (talk) 19:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, what the hell, I'll do it anyway. ::BANHAMMER:: RachelW (talk) 17:15, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, there is no way they changed the clinical definition of Major Depression that radically from the DSMIVTR to the DSMV. Not a single way. If you think that repeatedly shouting that it is so different that the "for no apparent reason" criteria was cut out, then you are completely mental. Please just shut the fuck up before you hurt yourself.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 17:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

You really do not have a clue do you? http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201202/dsm-5-the-barricades-grief Dirk Steele (talk) 19:28, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Under current guidelines, a psychologist must wait months after a family death in order to be allowed to diagnose a patient with Major Depressive Disorder, no matter how dire or obvious the symptoms are. Under the DSMV, psychologists can begin treatment on the same timescale as any other depression patient, GIVEN THAT THE PATIENT FULFILLS THE OTHER CRITERIA FOR DEPRESSION. Depression can be triggered by any manner of traumatic event, whether it be rape or a mugging or being fired, but those people can receive treatment after two weeks of continuous depression, while people whose depression is caused by the death of a family member must wait months to receive treatment. There is no medical reason to bar mourners from seeking treatment for depression. Being sad, by the way, is not a sufficient condition to be diagnosed. The actual criteria are far more serious than that, and not normal mourning behavior.

Can you cite your sources please? Read something like this http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/758788 Dirk Steele (talk) 22:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Well the criticism by Frances Allen is quite biting yes? But then you think he is an anti-psych nutter. Dirk Steele (talk) 20:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you have anything else to "contribute" to the discussion? If not, I'll be happy to permanently ban you, since you don't seems to think very highly of this site, and this site doesn't think very highly of cranks and trolls.RachelW (talk) 19:59, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I like this site. I like science and the scientific method. I do not like quacks. Well before you ban me please take a couple of minutes to read this small paper published in the British Journal of Psychiatry. It explains the paradigm shift occuring. http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Bracken-et-al.pdf I also take this position. Then if you think I am a crank and a troll then ban me. You may also want to take into account the poll on my psychiatry is a pseudoscience forum where the are 10 yes votes - over 20%. Although I do not know who voted what. Dirk Steele (talk) 20:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Tanya plays arm chair psychologist - that's what we call a "persecution complex". And god damn it stop the war on christmas, and stop trying to take away my right to freedom of religion with your damned gay marriages!Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 21:49, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, relax, I'm not gonna ban you. I don't even have the ability, you can just unblock yourself. Nothing you have cited supports the idea that psychiatry is a pseudoscience. We've collectively answered all of your "arguments" and you've proven your crank credentials to us by ignoring everything and repeating yourself ad nauseam. I can't speak for everyone, but most of us are probably just going to start treating you like we treat Rob; your attempts at trolling will be trollboxed, we won't let you edit any articles within your area of crank obsession, and we'll respond to most of the things you say with, "What's that got to do with the price of fish?"

But hey, I'll block you one more time, for the hell of it. RachelW (talk) 21:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Deja vu

If someone is not familiar with it, here's Dirk Steele vs Steven Novella. If a professional neurologist can't convince him, I doubt that we can.--ZooGuard (talk) 20:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

No. I will only be convinced by use of the scientific method. Explain to me where you think the science in psychiatry is so sound. Dirk Steele (talk) 21:18, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Steven Novella is a bit of a thicko in my book. (He also has spelling and grammar issues). Also his rants are not worth reading cos they are so obvious and bland 'Homeopathy is not science? shit. Yeh well we all know that so why not write something more interesting. (Neurocritic is far better). In his 5 blog rant about 'mental illness denial' he was arguing against Fred Baughman who is also a professional neurologist. I also argued against his blog on 'How ECT works' and I gained much support. Then he banned me. Ha! He may be a neurologist but his knowledge about psychiatry is poor. What he does not realise is that there is now an ideological war being waged between the USA APA and DSM5 and the rest of the world particularly in Europe which has been heavily critical of the US direction. It may be that direct to consumer adverts by Pharma, which are banned in the rest of the world, has resulted in a particular mindset. Propoganda has worked! Dirk Steele (talk) 20:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Let me give a whack at it/him

I'm still confused. Are you ok with accredit psychologists or psychiatrists attempting to fix undesirable and harmful mental states via directed talk therapy? Is your problem entirely with the label "disease"? Even after all this time, it's very unclear. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 22:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Existential talk therapy is fine by me although I would not define it as a science. I object to the medical model, which has been the psychiatric paradigm since Kraeplin, which reduces human distress to a biological biochemical problem in the brain and which then attempts to treat with spurious drugs like 'anti-psychotics' which do not work just like antibiotics but actually pump dopamine into the brain causing tardive dyskinsia or akathesia but do nothing to alleviate any social conditions. The abuses of psychiatry in history are legendary with abuses still occuring. But the voices of people who have suffered abuse are mostly ignored although groups such as MindFreedom and PsychRights have sprung up. How would you like to be injected against your will with Risperidone once a month? Psychiatry is the only medical 'discipline' that has survivor groups. There are no anti-cardiology or anti-endocrinology 'deniers'. Meanwhile people like Steven Novella are actively promoting ECT http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/how-electroconvulsive-therapy-works/ despite the evidence shown here http://www.ect.org/ But of course all these people are 'deniers' and are insulted and further sigmatised by the 'skeptical' groups including RW.

In the meantime these toxic drugs are used in every authoritarian institution to control unwanted behaviour. In schools, in prisons, in old peoples care home, in child foster homes, in the military, and in mental institutions people are being pumped with psychotropic drugs in order to manage behaviour that they do not like. I have a fundamental distaste for this ideology. Mostly originally promoted by German psychiatry who practised eugenics and promoted 'mental hygiene'. We know what the result of this ideology was don't we?

The fact is that biological psychiatry has very little scientific basis. The DSM is just a description of undesired behaviours defined by current social norms. There are no biological markers and psychiatry is the only medical speciality that does not even examine the organ it is supposed to be treating. Imagine Neurology without brain MRIs or cardiologists without heart scans. Even the trauma of a broken leg is defined by an x-ray. Psychiatry is a classic example of a pseudoscience inventing terms, with a latin or greek name!, and couching their ideas in scientifically sounding nonsense even worse than postmodernists. In th meantime people can be forced to have 'treatment' and be locked up against their will for years without ever committing a crime. 'Groupthink' of human beings has been responsible for this travesty. I have attempted to explain all this here but obviously the myth that a persons distress is caused by a disease is very embedded in human thought and will be very difficult to dislodge even more so than the idea of God. But yeh. I am a crank and a troll. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:32, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think you're a troll. Maybe a crank. Moving on to the topics at hand. Do you think it must have a describable known biological component in order to be called science? I would argue that directed talk therapy to ameliorate undesired mental states can be scientific without a "grounding" in biology. You can judge whether the directed talk therapy is effective at altering/removing/fixing the targeted mental states. Do you agree? Thoughts? LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 23:36, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes I think the definition of a disease must have at heart a known scientifically observable biological test. I do know there are medical conditions that do not meet this, but psychiatry with its 300+ has none at all. Maybe talk therapy can be scientific (although Popper and others disagreed). But to claim that 'talking' can cure a biological disease smacks to me of woo and quackery. And you will have to explain to me what you mean by 'altering/removing/fixing the targeted mental states.' This is how homosexuals were treated. And if you think that human beings and society have miraculously changed over the past 40 years you are a bigger optimist than I. Who defines the target? Now I realise that people can suffer existentially. Buddha said all life was suffering. Of course if a person does not 'fit' in with expected social norms such as 'be happy all the time' then they must suffer from a brain malfunction. This to me is quackery. Pseudoscience. It is not for a reason that psychiatry has not progressed one bit in the last hundred years whereas medical science such as neurology and cardiology etc have made huge progress. All humans are living longer except psychiatric patients whose life expectancy has been reduced by over 15 years in this modern age compared to the past. How long do we have to wait until psychiatry is deemed a total failure? Dirk Steele (talk) 23:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Please take a couple of minutes to read this article http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Bracken-et-al.pdf which expounds the position I take, then come back and tell me I am a crank. Thanks. Of course these psychiatrists are committing professional suicide unless they tread very lightly on the toes of their industry. Careers can be ruined! I admire people like Thomas Szasz who did not give a toss and said exactly what needed to be said. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:01, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course I do not expect people to agree with me. I know that they will not. I am merely stating a case. I think actually that the brain circuits involved in disgust at disease and decay are also used now by circuits that are defining 'moral' behaviour. RachelW states why should we allow schizophrenics to piss on her? I have met many many 'schizophrenics' and none have pissed on me. I have met a few RW users that have though... Secret Squirral has stigmatised schizophrenics as psychopathic violent offenders when in fact the 'mentally ill' actually have more violence committed against them. How come immigrants (blacks) are 4 x more likely to be diagnosed schizophrenic? Because we live in a racist world. Nothing to do with science is it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protest_Psychosis:_How_Schizophrenia_Became_a_Black_Disease

But hey LiberalofAnUnknown... yeh take a wack at me. And all you RW cranks such as RachaelW, and Hamilton. I am happy to be proved wrong. Really. But you better be sure of your scientific methods and your arguments else you will be shown up as the pussies you really are. (I know that irony is not understood by the USA citizens but I will use it anyway...) Bring it on baby. (I feel a new block just around the corner...just like in New York eh?) Dirk Steele (talk) 00:55, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm just arguing anal pedantics. Two points. 1- I don't know much about directed talk therapy, and I don't know if there's any evidence that current methods work. The point is that we can agree that there can be evidence that some methods can work. However, I am dismayed that you tried to hedge your bets by saying "although Popper and others disagreed". 2- I am also slightly bemused by your continued doublespeak as to whether we are even allowed to talk about undesirable mental states without fear of invoking moral relativism, such as by your continued assertions that it's all relative because we happened to persecute gays in the recent past (and some continue to do so). Suffice to say, if I wanted to discuss this more, I would parrot Sam Harris, and say that there is some reasonable objective standard by which we can judge mental health and mental well being. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 00:47, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Careful about the anal references otherwise I will give you a full on Freudian analysis which actually may hurt a bit!. Use vaseline baby! Popper stated that the ideas of Freud and Adler were categorically different to Einstein. Do you disagree? Dunno about Sam Harris. As a true evolutionary biologist I will investigate further. Can you say what our true 'mental health' and 'mental well being' are without resorting to political doublespeak? You say 'there is some reasonable objective standard by which we can judge mental health and mental well being.' Really? Explain how then. Germany claimed Jews were a disease and a plague and metaphorically framed this argument to obtain (hypnotise) the German population. I do not think the German population is any different to any other human population even now - we are all susceptible to propaganda. In Europe we have a different view on the War On Terror (Which is why the vote that Palestine is a state was passed despite sole objections by the USA, and it's minor states, Israel and the Czechs.) So anyway parrot Sam Harris here.. what did he say?

Have you readthe article I asked you to? What do you think? Where do you disagree? Ta.Dirk Steele (talk) 01:09, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh and I am still awaiting for your whack! You got me all excited! Dirk Steele (talk) 01:14, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

"Can you say what our true 'mental health' and 'mental well being' are without resorting to political doublespeak?" Do you have any morality whatsoever? LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:23, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I think I have a little knowledge on the philosophy of ethics. Care to debate? Why do you completely evade my questions above? Can't think of a rational answer? I would just derail the topic if I were you... Dirk Steele (talk) 01:29, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I have at least got you to admit that we can gather evidence to confirm or deny whether specific directed talk therapy works to remove specific identified mental states. What remains is a concession that we have a shared morality. Usually, most reasonable people can agree to things like "pain is usually to be avoided", "happiness is usually to be sought", "sadness is usually to be avoided", etc. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:38, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

More threads moved from Saloon Bar. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 16:56, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Anatomical Brain Images Alone Can Accurately Diagnose Chronic Neuropsychiatric Illnesses

Thought this was interesting. It was just published, and the researchers seemed to have a lot of success differentiating between different mental disorders, even ones like ADHD which are made up and invented by Big Pharma to sell Schedule 2 drugs to kids. RachelW (talk) 20:14, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I haven't had a chance to go through the whole thing yet, but I have the same problem with this that I do with all the other diagnosis-by-brain-scan claims. While this one looks more accurate, it still relies on applying aggregate data to individual cases. Brain imaging may contribute to psychiatric diagnoses, but I doubt it will ever be a valid means of diagnosis by itself. See this article for more. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 20:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't appear to be a criticism unique to neuroimaging. I am hard pressed to think of any diagnostic criteria that is not based around group comparisons. Blood tests, x-rays, cultures, all of them have relied on differentiation patients and controls through comparisons of group means and then individual diagnostics are about the relative chances of your data being in the patient mean or control mean. The problem with neural imaging is not so much to do with aggregate testing but with the effect sizes of group comparisons compared to individual variation. Right now with current techniques and technology the signal/noise ratio is too big and effect sizes to small for a diagnostic tool. But start scanning people in 14T scanners and that might change. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:26, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Or to add in another direction, if the measured signal happens to have large group effects in and of itself. There are actually a lot of diseases that can be diagnosed through neuro imaging. I don't seem many people complaining about the use of MRI to locate hematoma or tumour growth as being in bad form because the imaging hallmarks of these problems were discovered through group comparisons. Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

"This doesn't appear to be a criticism unique to neuroimaging." It is, because signal-to-noise ratio is not great with current imaging techniques as you mention. The linked article says basically what you said above, so we don't disagree here. Sorry if the first post wasn't very clear. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

At <=3T and with T1* based spin echo images with 2s TRs I will agree with you. But at >=7T anatomy scans? The linked study (regardless of what I think about its findings) are using a very different scan than the functional scans your article criticises. Start adding head coils and 14T magnets and even fMRI is going to have some ridiculous signal. DTI is the only thing I think is years away from great signal/noise increases. Tmtoulouse (talk) 05:26, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

But...but...Dirk Steele said there wasn't any mental illness. What am I to think now? --Kels (talk) 21:06, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

I also think I may be in two minds about this. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 01:39, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Bloody schizophrenics are everywhere!! Block him now! --Dirk Steele (talk) 01:46, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

This paper reads like a pile of woo. For example in the DSM5 field trials the kappa score for Major Depression MDD was 0.39. (Kappa scores are used to test the reliability of diagnosis from 0 (result by chance) to 1 (total agreement). Now for the MDD patients that had brain scans in this study one would expect then to find false positives. Yet the paper claims almost 100% success rate. This is suspicious don't you think? I will wait for further comments from neurologists who understand fMRI scans such as this guy. http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/fmri-gets-slap-in-face-with-dead-fish.html Dirk Steele (talk) 22:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

This study also does nothing to undermine my claim. I do not doubt it is possible to find changes in the brains of gays compared to 'normals'. As a musician my brain is most likely different from non-musicians. It has also been shown that long term 'schizophrenic' brains are different to normals but the cause is actually long term use of anti-psychotics which inflict neurological damage. I would expect everyone's brains here to be different and unique and dependent on their life experience. This does not mean at all that it is diseased. Neuroplasticity is a well known scientific concept. Dirk Steele (talk) 22:22, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Mine isn't. Ajkgordon (talk) 00:09, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

You are just a robot running the groupthink algorithm. But because you are written in Perl I can't follow the code. Dirk Steele (talk) 01:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

On reading the paper I began to think it was a pisstake along the lines of Alan Sokal. I particularly laughed at this assumption. 'misclassifications tended to be more frequent in the healthy participants than when discriminating one neuropsychiatric disorder from another. We suspect that the misclassification of healthy participants may derive from their carrying a brain feature that could place them at greater risk for developing an illness'. Are they latent homosexuals or what? Dirk Steele (talk) 01:26, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

dead fish

Wait are you seriously trying to use the dead fish scans as an argument against modern fMRI? Tmtoulouse (talk) 00:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

You don't know much about Dirk, do you? He's tried to use that psychology and psychiatry are different words as evidence that they're incredibly different in a situation where they can be used interchangably.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 00:24, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Psychology and psychiatry are different words. The clue is in the different letters used if one can be bothered to look after the first five. Maths and physics may overlap but they are different disciplines. It is easier to spot this because they do not have the same letter at the beginning. Dirk Steele (talk) 01:18, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I am stating that the use of fMRI scans are not the perfect science they may be made out to be by the media and irrational people. There are some serious issues within neuroscience about the methodology and about what exactly can be measured. (For those that do not want to read the article it states that neuroscientists measured activity in an fMRI scan when asking questions to two dead fish.) Do you want more citations and examples that explain this? Dirk Steele (talk) 01:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Psychiatry is basically just a specialization of psychology kiddo.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. Tielec01 (talk) 01:26, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Psychiatric practice requires an MD, so it's also a medical specialization. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:13, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Psychology is basically the study of individual human behavior. Abnormal Psychology, the study of mental and developmental disorders, is a specialty within that, and psychiatry is just a specialization within that that requires a lot of additional course work, that Szasz realistically never completed (trollbait laid)--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 05:20, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing to explain, the article itself explains it. The dead fish paper was not about criticising fMRI but rather that types of analysis that some people were running on their data. It was a criticism of using multiple comparisons without correcting significance thresholds. A criticism that applies to every single statistical test that involves multiple measures in any field. The reason fMRI was a bit prone to it in early days is that 1) there were a lot of comparisons (40,000+) if done on a voxel-by-voxel basis, and 2) the people doing the analyses weren't always the most sophisticated statisticians. For example, in my analysis I use a clustering algorithm that looks at simultaneous activation in multiple adjacent voxels. Noise is far less likely to propagate through adjacent voxels, we can actually calculate what that chance is using Monte Carlo simulations, and then use a cluster threshold to give us the appropriate significance level. Basically, I can correct for multiple comparisons by saying I will only accept my data if X number of adjacent voxels (say 40) all so significance at 0.05, which gives me an overall p-value of <0.005 for my total brain map. Voila no dead fish signal. Tmtoulouse (talk) 01:27, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Yep. Garbage in garbage out. I was merely pointing to issues with methodology. fMRI is great. I got my brain scan on my wall in a light box frame. It looks mad to me. But since you know more than me on this (I got lost on the maths) I would seriously like your opinion on the paper if you have time. It looks like a seriously profound piece of work if true. Ta. Dirk Steele (talk) 01:32, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

What paper? The dead fish paper? It was important work as a warning not to just run 40,000 ttest comparisons and make an activation map like some people were doing. That is not done in good papers though. There is a lot of interesting questions about what fMRI is actually doing, about individual differences, etc. But at this point the basic principles are pretty damn robust. Spatial resolution is amazing, and functional correlation between BOLD signal and brain activation is beyond dispute. The kinds of maps with high-definition fMRI are amazing. Tmtoulouse (talk) 05:21, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

No the paper here. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0050698 The subject of this discussion. Thanks. Dirk Steele (talk) 05:53, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I do not doubt that fMRIs are a significant research tool if used appropriately. Maybe you can use your expertise here (which is obviously better than mine cos I cannot understand most of it) to comment on the paper and its conclusions. I really would like to learn stuff...and if it blows my theory out of the window then.. great!! I have learned! I am happy to have my hypothesis overturned... and I will crawl away and apologise to everyone I have argued against. I have been wrong for most of my life. I am happy to be proved wrong again. Thanks for your time and effort. Cheers! Dirk Steele (talk) 05:45, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Suicide is a disease

After reading the Anatomical Brain Images Alone Can Accurately Diagnose Chronic Neuropsychiatric Illnesses paper I had suspicions of quackery so looked at the university where the research was done - Columbia University Medical Centre. I found this http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news-room/2012/11/02/rethinking-suicide-a-new-approach-by-dr-victoria-arango/#.UMPpS4br3IU I have my own views, given my interest in Roman history and also feudal Japan and the samurai code where suicide was considered an honorable act to counter shame. Do you think suicide is a disease or is this crank thinking? (I know what Thomas Szasz would say.... ) Dirk Steele (talk) 01:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

All mental illnesses are diagnosed in context with the expectations of society. why? cause what we are really looking for is non standard behaviors. Yes, in Japan it was acceptable to suicide. BUT you did not suicide because of depression, because of low self esteme, or because you didn't fit it. you suicide because you had done something dishonorable and this was the right path. highly different reasons for the same behaviors. Depression is an illness. Doing your duty is not. and by the way, before you romantize japan, studies from japan have shown that many if not most of the suicides were not carried out, and the 2nd had to finish them. they guys didn't want to die, and their desire to stay alive overrode their hand's slicing sideways. so see, they were healthy. --Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 01:54, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

It's amazing how much your line of reasoning matches Creationists. 1) Black and White examples with no context or subtlety, 2) using examples from 40 years ago, saying "see see you don't know what you are doing, 3) showing that the field is new, and has actual real errors and saying "therefore, not science", 4) using fringe authors for your 'evidence', and discounting that the are fringe for a reason. It is fun to read your spins, though.--Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 01:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

How did I romantize Japan. Lone Wolf and Cub were seriously disturbing. Do I just use examples from 40 years ago or do I complain that forced drugging of unruly kids in the prisons that are called school institutions to manage behaviour and gain more resources to skew statistics does not happen now? As Thomas Kuhn points out todays fringe authors become tomorrows leaders. The field of psychiatry is the same age as medical science. Hippocrates said melancholia was caused by an imbalance of the humors. Today it is cause ny an imbalance of the brain chemicals. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. One definition of a pseudoscience is the lack of progress. I think it is perfectly reasonable to read opposing views on one's own cherished opinions. Don't you? I think arguing against homeopathy (been there done that) on a homeopathic forum doesn't win you votes on the Mr Popularity awards. Anyway do you think suicide is a disease? Dirk Steele (talk) 02:07, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

There are cases where psychiatric disease is over-diagnosed since mental health professionals have an incentive to add many supposed patients to those they get paid to treat. We know now that mental health experts were wrong to consider homosexuality a disease as they did up to about 1980. 30 to 40 years from now we'll know more about when psychiatric illness is being over-diagnosed today. Proxima Centauri (talk) 17:16, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

You romanticize it, but not knowing it's actual reality. That said, you want all susicide to be seen the same, "as the same symptom". But that's not how science nor the scientific fields we are talking about, work. A suicide that happens when someone shows chronic fatigue, mild but persistent headaches, and mood swings is quite different from a suicide done when one is in pain from an untreatable (or last stages) of an illness; which is quite different from one done "for the family honor". Mood swings are a symptom of major brain dysfunction -- but they are also a symptom of hormonal changes, and they are also a symptom of lack of sleep, and they are also a symptom of recreational drug use, and they are also a symptom of medical drug use. You stop there and say "see... how can we say it's a disease". The medical and scientific community look at ALL THE SYMPTOMS, and start ruling out or focusing on various causes and treatments. Your world is black and white, at least on this topic.Godot She was a venus demilo in her sister's jeans 03:42, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

YOU ARE MAKING ME VERY ANGRY.... but you also made me laugh. I have a brain disease? I suffer from MSS (Mood Swing Syndrome) which everyone knows is caused by a lack of THC in the brain. What are my symptoms and what is my treatment? My world is not black and white it is panama red and malawi gold. You are talking such woo you make me want to wee. Dirk Steele (talk) 03:52, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Speaking of which, the suicide article could use a section on what psychics and New Age gurus claim about suicide and its (afterlife) consequences. There's a section for religion already but newagey/spiritual theories of it are different though usually equally nauseating (a la "you'll regret it and you won't get rid of your problems anyway, you'll still suffer"). I just revisited Erin Pavlina's website earlier, and it appears that 'Feeling Suicidal' is one of the four highlighted categories of her blog posts, right there on the front page. I was so angry, holy shit. People who would take interest in that topic are obviously very vulnerable, and she has no shame at all in trying to take advantage of that -- I read/skimmed through some of the articles and they heavily hinted that the suicidal person should contact their spirit guides (i.e., book a reading with Erin) or otherwise that one could make tremendous use of her services or products. ... Fuck this, can I write an article about her? — Haamer 10:01, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I do not want to think like normals. I want to think original thoughts. Am I delusional?

MadPride rules ok. Why is there this human instinct to want everyone to think just like them and to surround themselves with acolytes? And to distance themselves from others who may be different? Is it just a requirement of 'love' and support and the safety and security of being in a group. An evolutionary adaptive advantage resulting in better replication yet causing xenophobia. My little babes on here.. I love you all!! Now time for bed methinks since my whisky has all been consumed. Nighty night! Dirk Steele (talk) 02:20, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

You're either a dedicated troll or deranged, in need of serious help. Which, I am not sure. Perhaps both. Poe's Law and all. If you're merely a troll, please knock it off. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 04:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I do not understand what you are saying here? I am a troll? Give your evidence. I am deranged? Why? I am in need of serious help? In what way? Give me at least an explanation as to your statements that I can consider. So ..

1. Why do you think I am a troll?

2. Why do you think I am deranged?

3. What help do you think I need and why?

Thanks Dirk Steele (talk) 05:15, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Whether you are a troll or not appears at this stage to be irrelevant. You are clearly not making arguments that are likely to convince anyone here, and your repitition of the same old stuff makes you a troll, even if you are sincere in your opinions. I haven't yet had the pleasure of meeting you, but I am not impressed by someone who repeatedly makes the same arguments over and over again. Perhaps you might try to contribute something different, or try the same strategies somewhere different. Damo^Hi 06:21, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

We understand Dirk, you don't like the popular conceptualisation of illness, it's often arbitrary. No-one here cares becase semantic arguments are boring. If you want to say that after my rugby accident my face was simply different from normal, rather than fractured, then feel free. Enjoy a lifetime of argung with people about the meaning of words and desperately trying to find meaningful,objective cut offs on subjective judgement calls. Tielec01 (talk) 07:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Bloody flankers eh? Perhaps you are unaware of the work of George Lakoff (metaphors we live by) and others who argue that how a metaphor is framed has massive implications on how we can think. George Orwell's 1984 is also a good read. If psychiatry wants to use subjective judgement calls then it is not a science in my book. Yeh Damo , I am off to LessWrong very soon. But I may be back after I get the ban. Dirk Steele (talk) 10:37, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't see what your problem is. You didn't reply to my last post in the discussion-moved-to-forum. You agreed that we can use science to judge the efficacy of direct talk therapy at removing/ameliorating certain identified mental states, and I bet if we review the literature we can find lots of studies that show it works. All that's left is an agreement that it's reasonable to talk about certain mental states as undesirable, which any person with any theory of morality can easily do. After that, it's just your pedantic word-game masturbation that "undesirable mental states aren't diseases", which no one here cares about, at all. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 11:19, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure psychiatric illness is real, I'm also sure it gets over-diagnosed because large numbers of mental health professionals benefit from getting paid to treat the supposed patients. Sometimes, especially with juveniles treatment is forced onto patients. Other times supposed patients have their self-confidence weakened by psychological experts and are convinced that they need treatment when they may not.

Wanting to think original thoughts isn't necessarily delusional, that depends on what goes with your wish. Proxima Centauri (talk) 13:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

To LiberalofUnknownVariant in Forum:Falsifiability

(continuation from a few topics above regharding therapy.)

It is very difficult to have a discussion with you because I do not think you understand the issues properly. (You may not be aware of the current situation.) So I will try get back to basics and explain a simple model or paradigms within mental health. Of course I am aware that simple models do not reflect the full complexities but it is a start. In the field of mental health there are 3 main ideologies.

1. Psychiatrists are qualified medical doctors who have the belief that the behaviours exhibited by certain people can be classified as a disease and are the result of biological malfunctions of the brain either caused by genes or chemical imbalances. The medical treatment provided is with psychoactive substances, created by Pharma, which correct the malfunction. For example, a kid with ADHD has an abnormal brain which can be corrected by stimulants.

2. Psychologists and psychotherapists have the view that the behaviours are not caused by biological disease but result from that individual persons life's experiences which has caused mental stress. They will provide talking therapy, in the guise of a medical intervention, with the hope that emotional issues can be resolved and that the behaviours of 'patients' can be changed for the good. For example a kid with ADHD may have been exhibiting behaviour because of his experiences - abuse or bullying or problems within the family. Talk therapy is the best treatment to help resolve these issues.

3. There is also the view held by sociologists and others, that behaviors, which are called mental illness are not malfunctions but in the range of normal human conditions, albeit at the ends of the curve, and are not diseases or medical issues at all. Some people may be more emotional or more negative in their world views. That these 'issues' are created by certain authorities to manage deviant or unwanted social behaviour. The'ADHD' labelled child who has issues at school may be just an unruly child who hates being in the environment of a school institution. Think Tom Sawyer. Talk therapy can be useful but it is not a medical issue - referred to as Medicalization.

Now there are many overlaps that make the situation very complex, in that there are psychiatrists who hold the view number 3 or 2, just as there are psychologists who hold view number 1. Thus the British Psychological Association is currently very critical of the DSM 5 produced by American Psychiatric Association. The group currently known as 'antipsychiatrists' is in favour of either views 2 or 3 but reject view 1. There are some who hold all positions depending on the actual mental illness. I have adopted position 3 but I also agree with some aspect of view 2. Does this make sense as a starting position? Dirk Steele (talk) 16:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk Steele declares that he is correct, an iconoclast, and an internet mind reader

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar.

In a ground breaking study, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0050698 , researchers from the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons have demonstrated, with near 100% accuracy, that conditions which have previously been known as 'mental' illness are actually brain structure abnormalities that can now be identified by a simple fMRI brain scan. Tom Insel from the National Institute of Mental Health told us. "This is wonderful news. In the near future a patient need only visit the neurologist for a scan and then arrange an appointment with a brain surgeon for a simple operation." The American Psychiatric Association convened an emergency meeting last night but declined to comment. One psychiatrist who wished to remain anonymous said about the new edition of diagnostics and statistics manual, the DSM5, due to be published in May next year. "Well that was a complete fucking waste of 10 years hard work. I suppose I had better get down to the job centre pronto before all my other colleagues catch on to the implications of this paper. " Lawrence Stiab, one of the lead neuroscientists who helped develop the new technology stated "This is a great day for Neurology and medical science. Although I do feel a little bit sorry for those psychiatrists who will now have nothing to do. A few may be retrained as neuroscientists, but the vast majority do not have qualities required to move into a proper medical discipline, although marriage guidance counsellors and other such positions are in quite high demand. Ravi Bansel, another key member of the team also praised the publishers of the paper, PLOS One, a peer reviewed open access Journal, stating " Despite being turned down by a number of established journals, PLOS One provided excellent support and in the end it only cost us a few thousand dollars for us to get this key work out into the medical domain. The iconoclast Dirk Steele was unavailable for comments.^{— Unsigned, by: Dirk Steele / talk / contribs}

We have a range of interests and psychiatry is not high on our list. Dirk, why don't you start your own blog/wiki and tell everyone what you think is wrong with psychiatry? Proxima Centauri (talk) 14:15, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I have had many discussion here so some are interested. I thought this was a wiki dedicated to the scientific method and rejecting medical quackery. What subject do you suggest I might give some expertise? Dirk Steele (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

You can read round and find out our interests. Proxima Centauri (talk) 14:34, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Well I was thinking about doing a page on Digital Physics. No-one seems interested in that kind of thing though. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, this is basically border-line spam at this point. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 14:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I haven't been around for a couple of days. I been blocked. I will disappear for a couple more now. OK? Dirk Steele (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

It's amazing how you spin perfectly legitimate science to your own ends. This study has almost has no relation to any single word you just said. Well, you used "fMRI", and, indeed, "MRI" does appear in the paper. But that's about it. ^pathetic 14:40, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Did you actually read the paper? Anatomical Brain Images Alone Can Accurately Diagnose Chronic Neuropsychiatric Illnesses. So it validates my position outlined above - yes? Dirk Steele (talk) 17:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I did read some of it. Clearly from your screed above you got as far as the title and stopped. ^pathetic 17:32, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

How exactly do you disagree with my screed? I did read it and commented on it here http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Forum:Falsifiability#Anatomical_Brain_Images_Alone_Can_Accurately_Diagnose_Chronic_Neuropsychiatric_Illnesses Dirk Steele (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I never said I disagreed with your screed, I said was factually inaccurate. ^theist 18:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Of course it was a totally made up ironic 'news' release (including the statement Dirk Steele is correct) . I included the 'facts' that if the paper was true then the DSM and psychiatry disappears overnight but the fact that this massive claim had to be published in the vanity publishing PLOS One site, costing thousands, because no reputable journal would touch it with a barge pole went over a few people's heads. Not you though eh? Dirk Steele (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk how many articles have you created or edited on rationalwiki? Do you only come on this site to talk about psychiatry? Get a girlfriend or something, you clearly have far too much spare time on your hands and this psychiatry spam of yours on loads of different talk pages has been going on for too long. Forests (talk) 14:53, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I contacted Lawrence Stiab to verify his quotation. He denied it angrily, and asked where it came from. I gave him your contact details, Dirk. Hipocrite (talk) 15:31, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

One can't help but laugh.Dirk Steele (talk) 17:26, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

^pathetic 15:44, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

On the whole, Dirk Steele has created and editted zero articles, but has turned quite a few talkpages into streams of garbage that you need to use the fossil record to understand. Though, some alterations to mainspace articles have been prompted by him. At the least, I've altered an article (Mental illness denial, I think, possibly the one on Szasz) to basically go "well, in their defense".--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 17:25, 10 December 2012 (UTC

Okay, so they've found a way to detect symptoms of certain neuropsychiatric illnesses using MRIs. What is Dirk Steele's point here? Does he think this somehow invalidates the field of Psychiatry? If so, how? Apokalyps2547 (talk) 17:54, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

DS's position has been (at least as close to a consistent position as he's had) is that there is no biological basis for any psychiatric mental illness, and there never has been, but as soon as a biological basis for one becomes available, it is moved out of psychiatry's purview, and becomes a part of "legitimate medical science", like neurology. So, in his alternate world, psychiatry is now going to die, and everything that has been "psychiatry" is going to be automatically shown to be complete bullshit or merged into neurology.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 18:08, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually i think Dirk Steele has a valid point here. Penguin face (talk) 18:23, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like Dirk Steele is trying to have it both ways. "Psychiatric illnesses show no measurable biological effects, therefore Psychiatry is bullshit" has given way to "Psychiatric illnesses show measurable biological effects, therefore Psychiatry is bullshit". Which is it? Apokalyps2547 (talk) 18:31, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Confused are you? Dirk Steele (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I am sorry that most of you have actually missed my ironic pisstake above. Do you think the Onion is actually Fox news? Please read it again. My position has always been constant and is expressed here for all those who need a good yawn. Originally directed at LoUV.

It is very difficult to have a discussion with you because I do not think you understand the issues properly. (You may not be aware of the current situation.) So I will try get back to basics and explain the simple model or paradigms within mental health. Of course I am aware that simple models do not reflect the full complexities but it is a start. In the field of mental health there are 3 main ideologies.

1. Psychiatrists are qualified medical doctors who have the belief that the behaviours exhibited by certain people can be classified as a disease and are the result of biological malfunctions of the brain either caused by genes or chemical imbalances. The medical treatment provided is with psychoactive substances, created by Pharma, which correct the malfunction. For example, a kid with ADHD has an abnormal brain which can be corrected by stimulants.

2. Psychologists and psychotherapists have the view that the behaviours are not caused by biological disease but result from that individual persons life's experiences which has caused mental stress. They will provide talking therapy, in the guise of a medical intervention, with the hope that emotional issues can be resolved and that the behaviours of 'patients' can be changed for the good. For example a kid with ADHD may have been exhibiting behaviour because of his experiences - abuse or bullying or problems within the family. Talk therapy is the best treatment to help resolve these issues.

3. There is also the view held by sociologists and others, that behaviors, which are called mental illness are not malfunctions but in the range of normal human conditions, albeit at the ends of the curve, and are not diseases or medical issues at all. Some people may be more emotional or more negative in their world views. That these 'issues' are created by certain authorities to manage deviant or unwanted social behaviour. The'ADHD' labelled child who has issues at school may be just an unruly child who hates being in the environment of a school institution. Think Tom Sawyer. Talk therapy can be useful but it is not a medical issue - referred to as Medicalization.

Now there are many overlaps that make the situation very complex, in that there are psychiatrists who hold the view number 3 or 2, just as there are psychologists who hold view number 1. Thus the British Psychological Association is currently very critical of the DSM 5 produced by American Psychiatric Association. The group currently known as 'antipsychiatrists' is in favour of either views 2 or 3 but reject view 1. There are some who hold all positions depending on the actual mental illness. I have adopted position 3 but I also agree with some aspect of view 2. I think position 1 is quackery. Does this make sense as a starting position? Dirk Steele (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Nope. I'm still pretty lost. You say that it's quackery when psychiatrists claim that certain behaviors are the result of brain abnormalities, but then you misquote a study as support and misquote it to say that these same behaviors are the result of brain abnormalities. That seems pretty contradictory to me. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but I'm still completely lost. Is your problem that psychiatrists are quacks because they didn't use fMRIs, but as soon as they did then it's not psychiatry? I thought we already discussed this, equivalently: if it can be shown that certain medication is effective at ameliorating certain undesired mental states, then it's not quackery. Perhaps harmful overall due to better alternatives, but not quackery. Quackery is homeopathy. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:17, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

The problem for psychiatry is that as soon as a 'mental illness' is discovered to be a biological condition then the diagnosis and treatment are removed from psychiatry into a proper medical speciality. So for example when neurosyphilis (which caused mental degradation) was found to be caused by a bacteria it was then treated with antibiotics and removed from psychiatry. Epilepsy was discovered to be the result of a brain malfuction was moved to neurology. People who suffered from sleeping sickness once was treated by psychiatry but is now known to be caused by a virus and is no longer treated by psychiatry. In my little report on the paper (which if you read it was a JOKE! The paper is actually woo, but was used by RachelW to show how my views are wrong!). I show how if all psychiatric conditions are shown to be caused by a brain abnormality they would all be moved to neurology and psychiatry would have no-one to treat!! Which is why it is actually a pseudoscience. Does that make things clearer? Dirk Steele (talk) 21:33, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Why do you say that medication and directed talk therapy are not proper medical specialities? If it can be demonstrated that the treatment works at alleviating the target symptoms, which it can and has been demonstrated, then it is science, it is medicine, and it is not quackery. We all here reject your completely artificial and bullshit distinction between "the science I don't like" and "the science I do like". It's all science, and it's all medicine. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong I am not anti drugs. I use them myself - either a benzodiazipine or a stiff whisky for social anxiety for example. But one must understand what psychiatric drugs actually are. They are tranquilizers and do not actually cure anything, unlike anti-biotics which kill bateria causing disease, or insulin, a chemical that maintains blood sugar levels. A psychiatric drug is the equivalent to a doctor claiming to cure my chest pains with morphine.

Which is why there are no cures for any of the now 300+ mental illnesses. Not one. In over 150 years no cure has been discovered. (Because psychiatry is a psedoscience like homeopathy which also has found no cures only the 'placebo' effect).

Now if one then thinks that a psychiatric illness is a true scientific illness like cancer or measles then the idea that it can be cured with talk therapy is akin to saying prayer is an effective treatment for a disease. Which I think is quackery. One cannot maintain such an illogical unscientific proposition.

I have explained my position above - a combination of views 2 and 3 - mainly 3. But I do not accept that talking to someone is actually a medical discipline. It is talking to someone, advising and caring. This is best done by friends that psychotherapists. You are a Freudian? Or a Jungian? Or do you accept Popper's view that psychoanalysts are not practising actual science? Dirk Steele (talk) 22:15, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

true scientific illness, see: No True Scotsman. I don't know what that means, and you're using it as special pleading. directed talk therapy vs prayer, except we actually have evidence that directed talk therapy does something, as opposed to prayer which does absolutely nothing. Here, let me cut to the chase: You are an overly greedy reductionist. You will refuse to call it medicine unless it fulfills your arbitrary criteria. We here in the rational community have no such unreasonable attachment to contrived standards of science and medicine. If it can be demonstrated to help people, then it is medicine, and it is science. That's what "demonstrated" means. Reminds me a lot of physics envy. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 22:20, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the functioning of the body. The mind is not a physical object therefore cannot be seen through a microscope etc and cannot be subject to a scientific disease. Homosexuality was once thought of as a disease by psychiatry. Why? Being heart-broken causes immense sufferring but is not considered to be cured under a medical model. Why? Is everything a person does that helps another person a medicine? Only metaphorically not scientifically. You do know that much psychotherapy does not really perform better than an active placebo. What type of psychotherapy do you support since there are hundred and hundreds of different types. But as I stated I am not against therapy. It can be very useful. I support existential therapy myself. I just do not claim it to be either medical nor scientific. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:08, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

One further thought. Religion greatly helps some people deal with the trials and tribulations of everyday life. This can be demonstrated. By your logic this means that Christianity and Buddhism are scientific medicines. ot sure about your argument here. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:40, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't even know where to start. I've picked out two basic complaints that we should be able to resolve. Then we can continue to the harder points. Please answer the questions specifically. Do you agree that we can judge the efficacy of certain specific kinds of directed talk therapy at alleviating undesirable mental states? By definition, if it can be demonstrated efficacious, then it is science. Can you agree that it can be science, and if I present evidence that it does work then it is science? Second, you seem to have a conflation between "cure" and "medicine". The definitions I see do not have that. See: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/medicine . Specifically, "science and art which alleviates" counts as medicine. Do you agree? Thus can you agree to stop using the argument "it can't cure, so it's not medicine"? LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 23:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Sure. Preaching religious dogma could be considered efficacious at alleviating certain undesired mental states, and thus it could be science and medicine. I think that preaching religious dogma is not done for scientific reasons, is not subject to scientific investigation and testing, does not undergo reform in the face of new evidence, and so on, so any medical effects of preaching is purely accidental, a stopped clock phenomenon. Furthermore, I know that A.A. has been demonstrated to not work and this does not bode well for standard Christian and Muslim doctrine. However, given the billions of different religions, one for each person, some of them must be effective. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 23:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Answer to question 1. There is great debate in how to measure the efficacy of therapy. Are you aware of this? The scientific standard of double blind random controlled trials is not possible when investigating certain therapies such as this http://www.equine-therapy.info/. The efficacy is also measured for certain mental diseases based on HAM-D type checklists of subjective feelings - i.e. do you feel better? There maybe many reasons why a patient may not even tell the truth.. possibly being nice to the kind doctor or bowing to authority so as not to appear subordinate (Milgram effect). Therapy is not seen as much better than placebo. So how do you scientifically measure outcomes of therapy?

I'm pretty sure you can test the efficacy of so called "animal talkers". LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I see no inherent problem to testing the efficacy when the efficacy is determined based on self reporting. Yes, there are possible biases that may result, but you can control for them. Come on, if you discount the possibility of ever using self reporting, then you are saying that science simply cannot be applied to judge the efficacy of any political proposal, because of the self report biases that may be present in ex: determining whether people really want to not be mugged. How do you measure therapy? Well, why not compare it so an astrology reading, for starters, using a simple self reporting system? You keep denying the theory of mind, and that we can do science on the mind, and it's getting really tiring. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You may believe there is an 'art' to curing people of disease. Is there an art to curing cancer or measles? I do not understand this concept so please explain. Homeopathy or crystal healing could be considered 'arts'.

Stop being so difficult. It's really annoying. It's in the definition of "medicine" in Merriam Webster. I'm not making this stuff up. Also note that Merriam Webster also defines art as: skill acquired by experience, study, or observation <the art of making friends>. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You may consider that the medical (?) effects of preaching is accidental but how do you explain that it may work and therefore not to be dismissed. Of course you must be aware that psychoanalyst's such as Freud based their practise on the Catholic confession. No? Dirk Steele (talk) 01:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

How would I explain if it works? I just said. By accident. By coincidence. Finally, I know next to nothing about particular directed talk therapies. This is not a discussion about Freud or whoever else. I don't care what Freud said. I don't care what the most common method of directed talk therapy does, or what its proponents state. This is a discussion about whether it is possible to find scientific evidence that some kinds of directed talk therapy are effective at alleviating abnormal undesirable mental states, and whether that should be labeled science if the evidence is good (undoubtedly yes), and then whether it should be labeled as medicine (I argue it should). My position is entirely consistent with the factual possibility that all of psychiatry is a sham, and it's no better than attending an astrology reading. However, I also hold that its possible that astrology readings could be demonstrated to alleviate clinical depression, in which case it would be scientific and medicine. Highly unlikely, but I remain open to new evidence. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I do not demand that I have a reduction to biology to call something "medicine". It seems the community of doctors does not require that either, though of course it helps in demonstrating effectiveness to propose a biological method. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:35, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I also do not require it to be the best possible treatment ever for it to be called "medicine". There was plenty of good demonstrated medicine a hundred years ago that we would find abysmally bad today. Does that mean it's not medicine? No, it's demonstrated, and thus it's medicine. Does that mean we should practice it today when better alternatives are known? Hell no, use the better option. That's why I don't suggest astrology reading or religious preaching as treatments for depression even if they work. Even if they do work to some degree, we know better ways to deal with it, and we know the negative side effects associated with those treatments. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry but I have to wait 30 minutes to respond. I am a vandal on parole.. or something like that..Dirk Steele (talk) 01:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

LiberalofanUnknown states 'I don't suggest astrology reading or religious preaching as treatments for depression even if they work.' Sorry but I think this view is total insanity Dirk Steele (talk) 01:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

A little off topic, but did Dirk Steele actually start a thread called "Dirk Steele is Correct?" Or am I missing some post at the top of the thread? RachelW (talk) 01:36, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You must have missed this news item.

In a ground breaking study, http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0050698 , researchers from the Columbia College of Physicians & Surgeons have demonstrated, with near 100% accuracy, that conditions which have previously been known as 'mental' illness are actually brain structure abnormalities that can now be identified by a simple fMRI brain scan. Tom Insel from the National Institute of Mental Health told us. "This is wonderful news. In the near future a patient need only visit the neurologist for a scan and then arrange an appointment with a brain surgeon for a simple operation."

The American Psychiatric Association convened an emergency meeting last night but declined to comment. One psychiatrist who wished to remain anonymous said about the new edition of diagnostics and statistics manual, the DSM5, due to be published in May next year. "Well that was a complete fucking waste of 10 years hard work. I suppose I had better get down to the job centre pronto before all my other colleagues catch on to the implications of this paper. " Lawrence Stiab, one of the lead neuroscientists who helped develop the new technology stated "This is a great day for Neurology and medical science. Although I do feel a little bit sorry for those psychiatrists who will now have nothing to do. A few may be retrained as neuroscientists, but the vast majority do not have qualities required to move into a proper medical discipline, although marriage guidance counsellors and other such positions are in quite high demand. Ravi Bansel, another key member of the team also praised the publishers of the paper, PLOS One, a peer reviewed open access Journal, stating " Despite being turned down by a number of established journals, PLOS One provided excellent support and in the end it only cost us a few thousand dollars for us to get this key work out into the medical domain. The iconoclast Dirk Steele was unavailable for comments.Dirk Steele (talk) 01:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

RachelW. I do not think you suffer from a brain disease or mental illness at all. I think you have been traumatised by an event and/or that someone in your past has treated you like really shit. Am I wrong? Dirk Steele (talk) 02:27, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I fail to see how this relates to anything I said, at all. And given that I have previously replied specifically to this copypasta, which you have posted 3 times now, I am beginning to consider you more than just obtuse and actually willfully dishonest. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 01:50, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by 'this'?. Why do you think I am dishonest? Please elaborate thanks.

I'm pretty sure I reverted this for a reason. I misread the relevant conversation. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 07:06, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

A society stands or falls as a group. Those who do not fit into this 'neat' package of societal groupthink are ostracised and scapegoated. Those who do not accept the current prevailing 'groupthink' views are considered by the group to either be morally evil and possessed by the devil (as has happened in the theocratic past ) or considered to have a biological 'mental' disease (as now proscribed by the 'scientific' therapeutic present ). It is now time to fight this unscientific nonsense, understand its previous evolutionary advantage to a more primitive species, and move on to create our future in a rational scientific manner. Niche constructualism or doom? Dirk Steele (talk) 03:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Really, Dirk? You think I just missed that wall of masturbatory nonsense you disgorged onto the screen? I fucking posted the study, you moron. Nobody wants to read your little fantasy "article," Mr. Iconoclast. And thank you for your excellent diagnosis of my mental health condition, now that I think about it, I have experienced trauma and mistreatment at some point during my 24 years of existence. How EVER did you guess? And I'll be sure to contact Dr. Greenfield soon, here I was thinking that talking to someone about my problems and finally being able to overcome my anxiety attacks was for my own benefit, now I realize he was just trying to indoctrinate me into "groupthink." Let me get this straight: you're fine with the idea that an fMRI can diagnose mental illnesses by looking at the brain, but not with the idea that mental illnesses exist because the "mind" isn't physical? You must've really thought that study was going to prove a point for you, too bad you can't even keep your own points straight.

If we're going to play the "diagnose over the internet game," I'd say that a doctor advised Dirk to get some mental health treatment at one point, but rather than admit he needs help, Dirk decided to simply refuse to acknowledge that mental health care even exists. I would also diagnose you as a narcissistic crank who will end up alone, vomiting his pathetic little essays onto a rarely-read and mostly-ridiculed blogspot page. Remind you of anyone?

I hope you stick around here, Dirk. You're like our own version of Kendoll, except we're not going to give you free rein to shit all over our website with your nonsense. RachelW (talk) 09:08, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Liberal, I have explained to you that the hallmark of whether science based medicine works is the double-blind random controlled trial. This is not possible in therapy. An it is not possible to determine whether something works without this. A placebo effect works as is shown by homeopathy. As such all research on therapy is subject to confirmation bias. In fact there is good evidence that therapy does not really work at all. http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/neither-drugs-nor-therapy-prevent.html And the drugs don't work either. Unlike in scientific medicine where a cure or treatment can lower the incidence of disease or death, how come mental illness is becoming more and more prevalent every day. An epidemic even! What has psychiatry achieved over the past one hundred years? Apart from introducing more modern drugs which also fail. Zilch. Nothing. This is a one big sign of a pseuodoscience. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:13, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Censorship on RationalWiki

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar. 03:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

"I cannot know your experience. This is what pseudoscientific psychiatry claims . As the Buddha said 'I can only point the way'. We are all our own great little buddhas whether we realise this or not. Psychiatry exists to denigrate our individuality and as such is a totalitarian concept." So you move my discussion about 'mental hygiene' and neuroscience into a small corner of RW called Forum: Falsifiability which is a discussion about Karl Popper that no-one here is remotely interested in! Why? Weaselface .. you smack of insipid censorship. Please explain your actions. Ta. Dirk Steele (talk) 03:48, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

It isn't censorship to move topics off the saloon bar. Blue (is useful) 03:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

But if it's not what Dirk wants you to do then it is. Sam ^Tally-ho! 04:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar. 04:42, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Weasalface. you exhibit all the the signs and symptoms of people who are devoted to a love of authoritarian rule, as well as a support of 'newspeak' and 'doublethink' language, but you do not even realise your love of fascist concordance with totalitarianism because you have been brainwashed by the 'party'. What a 'rave' you have been conscripted to and been constructed by. Bah. Move my comments to an obscure and unread part of this 'rational'Wiki. So why haven't you moved Sid Meier's Civilization thread or Fake Geek Girls? Do these subjects this affect millions of people? By what criteria do you make your decisions? Please explain. Ta. Dirk Steele (talk) 04:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The article on fake fangirls was actually moved from mainspace to an essay. Also, "'rational'wiki", take a drink!--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 04:41, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

weaseloid seems to be a moderator which empowers him to enforce the site standards do as he pleases to maintain a certain decorum level of conduct on this site. Appeals to the Supreme Jerboa Goat are of course allowed. Hamster (talk) 04:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The saloon forum is read by many here. The forum falsifiability is read by no-one. Moving an item from Saloon to nowhere is a deliberate political act of censorship. Now I understand the authorities need to clean up the saloon bar from time to time. But when my shit is removed after a few minutes and shit like talking about computer games is left for a few days... well then I think that is a abuse of moderator power and I call this suppression of ideas however unpopular they may be. And Weaselface knows exactly what he is doing. Dirk Steele (talk) 11:01, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I already explained my actions in reply to your comment on my talk page, and don't appreciate that you decide to malign me here rather than responding directly. Those other SB threads you mention were all started by different people on different topics. When one editor decides to make the Bar their personal soapbox for thread after thread on the same issue, then yes it is appropriate to group those threads somewhere else & leave the Bar clear for other discussions. I would do the same for any other editor behaving like this. Щєазєюіδ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 13:31, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, to be fair, Dirk, your last couple posts were relocated by me, not Weaseloid, so distribute your blame appropriately. Blue (pester) 17:09, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

For Lib

Since you're crazy/stupid enough to actually respond I thought I'd clear some things up for you:

1. Freud: Psychiatry's Aristotle. He helped bring about a lot of modern ideas (there is something to work with other then behaviors), but is referenced in modern literature only historically (on the rare occasions he's referenced at all), and his work in modern times is pretty thoroughly ignored, and attempts to publish modern work based on him is going to get you laughed out of the academic community
2. The different types talk therapy: Really, there's only one. There are different schools of thought on abnormal psychology (existential, cognitive-behavioral, behavioral, Neo-Freudians, humanist and socio-cultural all have atleast 1% of mental health practitioners subscribing to their school of thought), but there are pretty much zero purists. Pretty much 95% of mental health practioners a combination cognitive-behavioral (how you think and react to your environment), socio-cultural (your environment and family), and biological (what is your brain doing that it shouldn't). Even the (for example) existentialists have been forced to adopt biological theories on mental illness because really on CB, SC and the biological school have any actual scientific basis to them. The rest are degrees of pop-psychology
3. Homosexuality as mental illness: literally as relevant to the modern field as the fact that it was engineers who designed the gas chambers for the Nazis, and chemists who suggested the gas to use is in modern chemistry and engineering. He only brings this up because the only current mental disorder that is in any way contentious is ADD/ADHD, and the mental health community agrees it's a problem!
4. Neurosyphilis, epilepsy, and the other condition he brings up: Seriously, I got no idea what he's talking about. If these were ever exclusively under the heading of psychology/psychiatry would be news to me.
5. Empirical evidence for psychiatry: It exists. You would get it in literally the first day of a freshmen level intro to abnormal psychology course. That DS says there isn't is a product of his repeatedly demonstrated willful ignorance.

In short: DS is barely more then the worst kind of mindless troll. Ignore/attack at your own discretion.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 04:39, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. Thanks. It's a fascination of me to poke idiots like this. I don't think he's a troll. He's just insane. Call it a kind of masochism. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 07:08, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about "insane" - it's not a word to be bandied about lightly - but, more and more, I'm working on the premise that DS has had some sort of negative (from his perspective) experience from the world of mental health and he now needs to vent his anger and frustration. He's certainly not to be taken seriously. Whatever truth there may or may not be in what he says is lost beneath the sound of the grinding of that axe. Innocent Bystander (talk) 09:02, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I have had no personal issues with psychiatry. I have worked for a few years as a mental health advocate attempting to stop psychiatrists from the the evils such as forced drugging with toxic shit that causes this shit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUr8ltXh1Pc . I have also represented 'patients who have been forced to endure brain damaging ECT treatment that people like Steven Novella promotes. http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/how-electroconvulsive-therapy-works/. Yes I do have an axe to grind against you teenage tossers here that think these things are an acceptable 'medical' treatments rather than see them for the quackery and 'punishment' that they really are. Now you lot may think that exposing scientific woo from harmless cranks is a laugh. But of course something as serious as psychiatry which adversely affects millions of people each year... well you just call them crank idiots if they complain. You should be ashamed. Dirk Steele (talk) 10:00, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about "insane" - Meh. I think I've had my fill. He hasn't yet responded to my questions, and they're no fun if they don't play along. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 10:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

"I'm working on the premise that DS has had some sort of negative (from his perspective) experience from the world of mental health and he now needs to vent his anger and frustration." At some point on his talk page DS said he had been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), which you can look up for yourself, but it's a personality disorder which is considered a "childhood disorder" with a diagnostic criteria that the patient be a minor, and is usually diagnosed under 16, with after that the patient will usually be diagnosed with something like Conduct Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder. Per the DSMIV TR (the latest circulating edition) the child must meet 4 of 8 of the signs and symptoms: "Actively refuses to comply with majority's requests or consensus-supported rules, Performs actions to deliberately annoy others, Angry and resentful of others, Argues often, Blames others for his or her own mistakes, Often loses temper, Spiteful or seeks revenge, Touchy or easily annoyed". DS meets all but "blames others for his or her own mistakes" by my count. Add in that he's admitted to being a minor by admitting to having ODD, and we have a nice picture of who DS is and what he's all about.

He's a kid, so I usually try (fail, but try) to be nice to him. He knows enough to occasionally demonstrate some insight into the mental health field, so he's clearly pretty smart. I just hope he tries to listen to the counselors advice. If he develops some social skills and calms the fuck down he could be a great researcher and a boon to any field that takes him.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 17:40, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

You Hamilton are just a patronising bitch! Where I may know a lot about a little you seem to know everything about everything. Well done - I do remember what it was like to be an acne riddled teen. Fot your information I am 56 years old - I told you I obtained my degree in Psychology from Sussex University in 1979. I have had a long career in software development and earned enough dosh so that now I am retired and have too much time on my hands and not enough whisky. See my above statements about how I have been involved in mental health. As for the prat who said I probably did not have a girlfriend let me tell you my wife is a pretty 26 year old model and we have had a wonderful 14 year relationship. And yes I have ODD but according to the DSM-IV this condition is not related to age. Cite? I also have told you that I suffer from Dissociative identity disorder (previously known as multiple personality disorder) and I have 7 separate individual persons that inhabit my brain. I used to be an aspie but that condition no longers exists in the DSM5 so I am now cured. I say psychiatry is quackery. Dirk Steele (talk) 18:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Hang on, you have a "wife" who you met when she was twelve (she's 26 and you've had a 14 yr relationship) and you were 42. You don't see anything strange here? Innocent Bystander (talk) 18:27, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah, I wanted to say that! Besides, this is the part where the train is coming completely unhinged. I think DS is going to completely explode here soon enough.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 18:34, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Some people here are too stupid to understand the concept of humour so most of my jokes fall flat. I would say Doh!!! but I don't know how to spell it. No.. we have been together 3 years. Got married in the Little White Chapel in Vegas!!! Very very drunk!! (Although I did not tell her I am still married to my ex bitch so keep it a secret between just us yeh? ) And I am still disappointed that no-one saw the funny side of my saloon post 'Dirk is correct'. I did actually laugh out loud when I wrote it. But psychiatry is still quack quack quackery. Dirk Steele (talk) 18:46, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, humor? Is that what you call it? Wow, we must be really dumb, we thought you were just fantasizing about a world where you're considered an intellect to be consulted, rather than a crank to be contained and ignored. RachelW (talk) 01:55, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I thought it funny that people did not see it was a piss take. I read the paper which I thought was woo and explained why earlier. It was published in PLOS One - a jounal you can pay to to get shit published when respected journal reject it. You argued that showed that I was wrong. But if the paper is actually true and that mental illness can be diagnosed now by a scan then the whole world of psychiaatry tumbles down! The DSM5, 10 years in the making, is no longer needed! So yes I thought it funny. The whole piece was a piss take including Dirk Steele is correct and the iconoclast bit! (Anyways Dirk Steele is a fictional character. Nick talking now. I am sorry to hear you have anxiety issues. Many years ago I too suffered from some crippling panic attacks starting from smoking too much weed. So I do know how terrible they can be. I learn't about the physiology of the fight/flight syndrome and also realised it was my fear of the panic attack and thinking I was going to lose my mind that were actually causing them. Then they went away. So good luck to you and hope you get them sorted. Back to Dirky boy now...)

Did you read my bit to Liberal about the 3 ideologies in mental health and the current war?. What did you think? Dirk Steele (talk) 07:51, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

My sources

In order to further explain my view that psychiatry is a pseudoscience I thought it may be useful to state where my ideas have come from to promote further discussion (Although I know no-one is interested and thinks psychiatry is not really important as a discussion on RationalWiki).

But here goes.

1. The views of cognitive science especially George Lakoff and Mark Turner. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Lakoff http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphors_We_Live_By In this book, and others, Lakoff shows that much of our language is metaphorical in nature and actually frames how we conceptualise our world around us. Conceptual metaphors actually frame the ways in we can actually think. (Think of the use of Newspeak' in the novel 1984). So, for example, a morally disapproved act can be framed with a medical metaphor. Someone who performs an action in ways which we cannot 'understand' will be deemed crazy or sick. Defining an action as 'sick' is a metaphor in the same way that a 'joke is sick'. Defining unusual behaviour or thoughts as 'sick' frames the action into a medical ideology. Thus the idea that insane people are 'medically diseased' to be treated by the medical model is formed, although society does not recognise that the idea here is metaphorical and treats it as a literal truth.

2. The ideas of Marshall McLuhan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message and the work of Neil Postman who takes these ideas and applies them to institutions such as schools. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Subversive-Activity-Neil-Postman/dp/0385290098/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1355309546&sr=8-7&keywords=neil+postman So in the same way that Neil Postman asks us to look at the medium of a school to fully understand the message (I think a prison!) I have applied these ideas to psychiatry and its institutions.

3. From sociologists and the theories of deviance and medicalisation of society. For example Peter Conrad, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Conrad_%28sociologist%29 http://www.amazon.com/The-Medicalization-Society-Transformation-Conditions/dp/080188585X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1355310013&sr=8-1&keywords=peter+conrad http://www.amazon.com/Deviance-Medicalization-From-Badness-Sickness/dp/0877229996/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1355310084&sr=8-3&keywords=peter+conrad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicalization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deviance_%28sociology%29 So the idea here is that the behaviour and thoughts of people who transgress social norms are scapegoated in order to consolidate the norms of a particular society or group and to punish those that fall out of line.

4. The study of Mythology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology The term mythology here is not used to define a belief that is 'untrue' but in its academic sense it is an ideology that underpins a particular culture and is used to condition group members into a particular belief system which is then used to frame and explain the worldview of a society and its social institutions. I enjoy looking at todays society and to uncover modern myths that people may be unaware of.

5. The work of Karl Popper and the definition of what is science, and the demarcation of science with other disciplines. (Although I have recently been told that Popper is not relevant to the philosophy of science today so I am trying to explore this issue further because I may be misguided.)

6. Of course the work of Thomas Szasz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz and the 'anti-psychiatry' brigade. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Szasz#Therapeutic_State Thomas Szasz was the first psychiatrist to point out that the mind was not a physical thing which could be examined by scientists and therefore could not be diseased. The term 'mental illness' is actually a metaphor and not a scientific concept. An examination of the history of psychiatry and how it is used within a society - for example within the courts and the use of forced imprisonment and drugging, and the totalitarian concept of 'mental hygiene' is all covered in his books.

7. The work of psychologists such as Richard Bentall, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bentall and The Critical Psychiatry Network http://www.criticalpsychiatry.co.uk/.

8. Psychiatry. Obviously. In particular the current war between psychiatry and psychologists as exemplified by the debates over the new DSM5. Also the 'psychiatric survivor' groups as can be found here http://psychrights.org/index.htm http://www.mindfreedom.org/ amongst many others.

9. I have also read a ton of shit about evolutionary biology, philosophy of the mind, psychology, the nature of consciousness, psychotherapy, neuroscience, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, information theory etc, all of which have contributed to my views.

Anyway, I may be a crank and a troll and a dick (I admit to this ), but please do not insult me by calling me a scientologist! I regard psychiatry as another secular religion which is at war with other religions so of course there is heated debate amongst dedicated believers. Although I call myself a member of the skeptical community I believe that this 'movement' is in danger of developing religious overtones which are exemplified by the use of the word 'denier' - the new 'heretic'.

Despite the fact that the members of RationalWiki is not interested in this topic, I feel the exposure of the nature of psychiatry which affects millions of people is a subject worthy of debate. Even more so than the other obviously quack medical ideas such as homeopathy. Dirk Steele (talk) 12:01, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Naughty children

Making children and teens behave by forced drugging with anti-psychotic drugs. http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2012/12/13/sunlight-is-the-best-disinfectant/ Tom Sawyer would not have stood a chance... Dirk Steele (talk) 12:59, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Good thing he was a fictional character. Theory of Practice "Now we stand outcast and starving 'mid the wonders we have made." 14:39, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I gave this example because I thought that everyone here would be familiar with this description of childhood. No? --Dirk Steele (talk) 19:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Alice in Wonderland involves drug taking. Sherlock Holmes and the 7% solution. Hobbits, dwarves, magicians and humans smoke in The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings. Ban them all! 212.85.6.26 (talk) 17:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

BoN, please don't feed the troll.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 17:15, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Forced drugging of children ok with you lot then? I quite like street drugs myself but there is a reason that brain damaging anti-psychotics do not get sold on the black market. Dirk Steele (talk) 19:02, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh for the love of god, shut up already. Fucking hell, no one gives a shit about your little gripes with the big bad system. Just because you have to go to therapy doesn't mean the rest of us are all going to lose our minds and demand that psychiatry departments the world over get firebombed. Just shut the fuck up already. Goddamn.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 19:08, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I think I am following the mission of RationalWiki to expose pseudoscience and authoritarianism. Whereas you merely want to discredit Popper and science since you said 'Popper's views are so restrictive on what is science, that a lot of what we consider science is sloughed off as pseudo-science unnecessarily'. And that 'the king (Popper), is often so overbearing that it's impossible to get any work done very often'. Straight from the mouth of a creationist eh. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Explaining_the_fall_of_Popper. Keep up the abuse mate.. Dirk Steele (talk) 19:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Just because you're still in love with Popper doesn't mean anyone else is. You would know this if you took an intro to philosophy of science. Or an intro to philosophy course in general.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 19:49, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I am not in love with Popper - only the view that falsifiability is a key component of the scientific method. The fact that psychiatry is not falsifiable, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment , suggests to me that psychiatry is a pseudoscience. Not to mention that I do not agree with forced drugging to control behaviour. That is child abuse no? Dirk Steele (talk) 20:16, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

No, this is not child abuse. Children do not have full control over themselves but are subject to the control of a parent or guardian. Similarly any adult found incapable of making decisions may be assigned a guardian. There are legal processes to deal with anyone who may be being mistreated. Sure psychiatry may not be as neat a science as say chenistry, and like some of modern medicine is based on "try this, that worked, do it again next time" but it has enough successes that we dont just throw it out. Hamster (talk) 23:19, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

We're getting back to you being far out of date on the definition of science.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 20:23, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

RationalWiki Censorship is getting out of hand

This is an act of censorship pure and simple. Why move a discussion about the forced drugging of children to a forum 'Falsifiability' and then to a forum 'Science and the Mind' (of course without informing anyone of that latter move). This is vandalism and yet you place me in the vandal bin. Explanation of your total authoritarianism required please. Thanks. Dirk Steele (talk) 21:04, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Because we're not going to keep having the same fucking conversation with you 700 times. Cleaning up shit is not vandalism, it is janitorial work. RachelW (talk) 21:20, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, don't read too much into the name of the vandal brake. It is simply a device to slow down editors with a demonstrated habit of multiple edits coming in spates. We agree (maybe not you, but we do) that you fit that criterion. And Sophie didn't redirect Falsifiability to Science and mind, I did. Anyone so foolish/bored/naive as to be watching that forum saw the renaming, which is notice enough. Sometimes the most rational of reasons is sod off, you tiresome git. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:43, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

(EC) There is no "latter move" and there is no "Forumn:Falsifiability". It was renamed as "Forum:Science and mind" two days ago to more accurately reflect the forum subject because you, Dirk Steele, kept kicking up a stink over the Karl Popper thing which makes up only a handful of comments. Next time you want to post comments about the mental health sector, please do it on that page so we don't keep having to go through this dance. Weaseloid^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 21:46, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

by the 'thought control' bullies. They know who they are and so do we. Surely open discussion is encouraged here? Delete my comments again go on. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:34, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

It's funny that you've asked how to contact the mods about your harassment, while ignoring that its the mods who are the ones doing this to you.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 23:38, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, the sense of the meeting seems to be that we are not here to host your bloviation. Also, we don't give a fuck. That last "we" refers only to me and the mouse in my pocket. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Look Dirk, RW is not going to be your soapbox to broadcast your anti-psychiatry crusade. We don't delete comments, but we won't hesitate to relocate them if an editor is constantly posting on pages like the saloon bar about the same thing over and over again. Blue (pester) 23:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

He's been told this enough times. At this point, if he continues posting the same stuff here, I don't think it's inappropriate to just revert. Ŵêâŝêîôîď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:53, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Same stuff? Is Popper, the scientific method, psychiatry is a pseudoscience, and the morality of using drugs to control childrens behaviour the 'same stuff'? Explain. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Where have I asked to contacts the mods? Show me. (Oh.. I forget.. that comment has been totally deleted or moved to a place where no-one can see it. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, the sense of the meeting seems to be that we are not here to host your bloviation. Also, we don't give a fuck. That last "we" refers only to me and the mouse in my pocket. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Look Dirk, RW is not going to be your soapbox to broadcast your anti-psychiatry crusade. We don't delete comments, but we won't hesitate to relocate them if an editor is constantly posting on pages like the saloon bar about the same thing over and over again. Blue (is useful) 23:50, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

This thread ('naughty little children' - now totally deleted from the saloon) was nothing to do with anti-psychiatry. It was questioning the morality of drugging children in order to control their behaviour. Just like we may discuss violence (spanking) to control behaviour. This is nothing to do with any previous post I have made. Unless you disagree with my premise and want to censor it.

I am only here to support the scientific method, expose pseudoscience and to counter the abuse of authority in dictating even what can be discussed. By censoring me RationalWiki shows its true colours. Don't you want to expose 'creationism' or are you just spouting your bloviation? What is the difference? - please explain fully.Dirk Steele (talk) 00:04, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I am a bit confused , which is my normal state. I thought your statement about forcing drugs on kids was related to the treatment of things like ADHD which, forgive my ignorance, is normally diagnosed and treated by a psychiatrist. That seemed in my mind to conect that topic with your psychiatry is unscientific woo bit. Hamster (talk) 01:18, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Nothing to do with psychiatry. When I was little my parents shut me up with gripe water. Which explains maybe how I am now drinking a bottle of whisky a day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gripe_water It is a moral question about how a society controls deviance o rebellious youth. Discipline and punish?, drug to the eyeballs or what? Anti-psychotics are not used to medicate ADHD - anphetamine type substances are used here. I am talking about a philosophical position about how we control children. Nothing to do with psychiatry - although psychiatry and bad pharma encourage it for financial reasons. What do you think? Is this idea morally good? Dirk Steele (talk) 01:51, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk Steele is whining again

Why is a discussion about the censorship on wikipedia been moved to a topic 'science and mind'? Why are all my topics..on Popper, Psychiatry, the morality of drugging children, and the censorship on wikipedia all moved to the forum 'science of mind'? Please explain. I can only think censorship. Thanks.Dirk Steele (talk) 00:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

It would probably help your case greatly if you knew what website you were at.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 00:46, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

this is of course RationalWiki. If you were talking about Wikipedia then I suspect many people are confused. Its better , more productive, to discuss it at Wikipedia. If you want to complain abut them , feel free to do so but you may not get much agreement Hamster (talk) 01:11, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

The Saloon Bar is a place for casual discussion. If you want to revise articles, please make the appropriate edits/talkpage comments on the relevant page. If you want to continually post new topics here about your crankery, we will not delete them but we'll certainly feel free to relocate them. There's nothing necessarily wrong about posting them here, but neither is it wrong to put them in a centralized place with an appropriate redirect, as has been done, so that only those who want to engage you are forced to endure. This is the case with other one-sided discussionmongers, like one of our resident conservatives, RobS (currently blocked because he lost a bet). It would be different if there was the slightest chance of a productive discussion, but it appears that you show up and just howl at the moon.--^talk 00:53, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Atheism

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar.

Neuroscientists have finally proved that Atheism is a mental disease. Using the latest fMRI technology, scientists have finally been able to prove conclusively that a brain malformation causes the crippling mental illness known as Schizotypical Atheism Disorder, SAD. Dave Tripe, from the Templeton Institute stated ' We now know that the brains of atheists are different from the normal brain. Atheists show much more activity in the temporal lobes than is shown by healthy normal control subjects.' E. Fuller Torrey of the Treatment Advocacy Center said ' This is a great day for the science of the mind. We can now prove that delusional beliefs such as atheism are actually caused by a disease of the brain. When we compare atheists to normal controls there is a significant anatomical difference'. Pharmaceutical companies have already announced a drug that can alleviate these symptoms. Chris Crap from GSK told us. 'We believe that atheists, or those that suffer from NBGS, Non Belief in God Syndrome, have an impairment of the hippocampus that can be cured by a stringent drug treatment using the newly discovered XOCET which will change the chemical balance of the brain'. Recent tests have shown that patients treated with this drug lose their enthusiam for non religious thought processes and become more amenable to be manipulated into the current acceptable paradigm of society and less prone to antisocial behaviour. Dick Hamilton, of the Scientific Ecomonical Society stated. 'Atheist illness costs the ecomony billions of dollars in lost production every year. This drug can restore the USA to fiscal balances never dreamed of since we rejected the gold standard.' Sophie Wilder of RationalWiki stated 'At last we can rid ourselves of the skeptics and get on with writing insignificant balderdash which is what the public really wants'. There was one view of discordance which was immediately suppressed without consideration. Dirk Steele (talk) 02:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Denialism

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar.

Can you please remove this thread immediately to 'Talk: Denialism of Denialism' so that no-one will ever read it and thus bury their heads in the sand which is part of the human condition that cannot be challenged with the scientific method. If this can be done as soon as possible I will forever be grateful and will respect your merciful redemptive ideology for eternity. Thank you so much for this favour. I will bow down and kiss your arses each day.

Censorship

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar.

Of course my accusations of being censored are being censored. Ha! Dirk Steele (talk) 02:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

you are not being censored. Your comments still exist and can be located easily by anyone who wants to. If you were being censored someone would have simply reverted your edits since you dont seem to be autopatrolled. Please feel repressed if it makes you happy. Pet the Jerboa and relax. Hamster (talk) 04:11, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Stop it?

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar.

Why? Tell me why before you delete or move my comments or block me. Is that fair? Or are you just a censor without reason or rationality? You just disagree? Thanks Dirk Steele (talk) 02:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

RationalWiki and Rationality

Most people on here have turned RationalWiki into a totalitarian authoritarian nightmare. When beliefs cannot be questioned that which promotes the fact that ,without discussion, (and comments are deleted or despatched to areas that are not ever read...) censorship prevails. I am sure that this was not the original intention of this site but it seems that fanatics have taken over the asylum. Fanatics rule and I cannot even object to this groupthink. Who to? RationalWiki has turned into a fundamentalist religious site where certain beliefs are censored because of the majority societal conformative rule. So no discussion or argument is possible. Censorship prevails. This RationalWiki ideology transforms a questioning society into a totalitarian mindfuck. RationalWiki is destroying itself and has become a religious ideology monitored by priests that call themselves 'moderators.' Pathetic. RW is worse that a creationist site now. What the fuck happened? Dirk Steele (talk) 03:32, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

God, that's so many drinks I might as well just go get wasted.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 03:37, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

how did I made post but no one care????±KnightOfTL;DR^{lavishly loquacious}

Dirk you are wasting your time with these silly rants, if you put the amount of effort of your rants into actually creating/editing articles, I am sure you have much to contribute. But instead you do these repetive rants which are attention seeking and border on trolling and by doing this you will be dismissed by other users here. I don't have time to read over all your rants, but if you want people to take you seriously then why not create a well sourced article actually showing how psychiatry is a pseudoscience (I have seen nothing from you but spam on this). Instead of directing people to wikipedia or spam, perhaps you could do some original research in this area and present some real data if you want to be taken seriously. Forests (talk) 04:23, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk you are just wrong. I came here and single-handedly initiated a change of tone on many subjects, mainly those related to nuclear energy and genetic engineering. That's because I had solid evidence on my side. You are just recycling tedious pseudo-intellectual bullshit that is very light on actual evidence, and when you are not allowed to pollute the saloon bar with it, you write long rants on how you are being censored. If you really want to convince anyone, I recommend you to make your case in a well-sourced essay or userspace article. --Tweenk (talk) 04:33, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I do have solid evidence. http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Forum:Science_and_mind&oldid=1117249#My_sources and here http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Forum:Psychiatry_is_a_pseudoscience Dirk Steele (talk) 22:10, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, you sound like the alternative health crowd, who want everyone heard from except the medical experts. Skepticism isn't a free-for-all; things can be tested, tests have results, and you can't ignore the results just because you find them ideologically inconvenient. (You can try to argue the point, but if your research is crap, you'll be laughed out of the room anyway.) EVDebs (talk) 07:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

No I think it is you that promotes unscientific 'alternative health' woo. The mind is not subject to scientific observation therefore the idea of 'mental illness' is metaphorical pseudoscience. How can the mind be scientifically tested? If you then say that mental disease is just brain disease - well how does just talking (CBT and other therapies) cure a disease? Does it act like prayer? What is your explanation of 'mental illness'? See my sources here http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Forum:Science_and_mind&oldid=1117249#My_sources and then perhaps we can discuss Dirk Steele (talk) 22:10, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I wish you could live for a month with the scrambled mess I have for a brain and then tell me mental illness doesn't exist. Anyway, Edward Jenner didn't have the faintest clue what a virus was, but he knew for damn sure that vaccines worked, and eventually medical science found out why. Just because the answer isn't known doesn't mean you can't work with what you already have. But, you know, that's science. EVDebs (talk) 02:38, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I live with a scrambled brain too. Life fucks me up in so many ways. Is this due to a 'disease' or as the buddha or existentials say is actually the human condition? Life can be beautiful and terrible and depends on our experience and not because of a 'disease' Be who you are! There are no guarantees or shortcuts to (overated) happiness. I do not object to any consensual psychiatry nor do I object to religion or homeopathy or any method which helps us face the facts of life. I reject the fact that people are coerced or forced to take drugs because of difficulties in living. Life is difficult. Period. Evolutionary theory tells us that fact. If we really cannot cope then drugs will not cure us. (apart from whisky ;-) ). You use a straw man to try demolish my argument. Dirk Steele (talk) 03:22, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Argumentum ad self righteous gibberish. Whaddya, a Scientologist or some shit like that? EVDebs (talk) 04:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, you're just wrong. You're rehashing the same arguments which failed to convince us last time, and we don't want to hear about it any more. LiberalOfAnUnknownVariant (talk) 21:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I fail to convince you like an atheist fails to convince a creationist. You show little understanding. Read a little http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Forum:Science_and_mind&oldid=1117249#My_sources and then we can debate. Dirk Steele (talk) 22:10, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Can't you supply a little guide for people that shows them how to use a PC? I am fed up with my subscription to Which Magazine. They don't even tell me how to edit a mediawiki page using those funny little characters I can't even find on my keyboard. Thanks.

So I write all my important shit.. sometimes even over one hundred letters which takes a lot of effort, and, cos I am in the bloody vandal bin, I patiently wait for thirty minutes eagerly awaiting my time to post.. then.. when I am finally allowed to - I find that I have been logged out for inactivity and lose all my valuable incisive and unfalsifiable posts!!! So now I have to sit here clicking and saving every couple of minutes which seriously interferes with my whisky drinking time. I think you should not discriminate against alcoholics like this. It is just not cricket sir. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Also, while I am on a roll - am I the only person that has to answer that annoying little question regarding the nth position on the word below the logo every time I post?. (Took me ages to even understand what the logo was! I suggest you get Saachi&Saachi to redesign). Don't you think that this discriminates against those poor people who suffer from Dyscalculia and Dyslexia? Is it even politically correct? I have enough trouble trying to count to 1800 between each rant!! Dirk Steele (talk) 23:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Dyscalculia

For many years now I have thought that I was just plain stupid/dumb but now I have discovered that I have simply been suffering from the mental illness of Dyscalculia. http://www.dyscalculiaforum.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=3811 I have been really struggling with String Theory (Not Even Wrong) but never suspected that I might be having trouble with my Brane (M-Theory). Now all is clear. A mixture of Ethanol and THC are the recommended cure combined with any methylamphetamine concoction which will correct my chemical imbalance. Has anyone else experienced such difficulties that they would like to share? I am looking for a good therapist but I understand that David Deutsch is not recommended (too expensive). Anyone got any suggestions? Thanks. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

This post was later changed by another editor to the lorem ipsum trope below.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec sit amet metus elit. Morbi nunc nunc, vulputate in tincidunt eget, porta id ligula. Sed tincidunt, leo non porttitor vulputate, mi libero feugiat erat, nec rhoncus nisl augue id enim. Cras et leo felis, ac varius sapien. Duis consequat sollicitudin dui, id faucibus sem scelerisque vitae. Ut sem lacus, lacinia eget auctor bibendum, bibendum at felis. Quisque cursus faucibus orci, sit amet blandit risus ultrices et. Aenean a tellus eget tortor congue facilisis. Curabitur cursus ultrices nibh, eget iaculis est sagittis at. Integer sit amet nisi erat. Suspendisse eu arcu justo, ut congue sapien. Sed ullamcorper diam vitae metus mattis in pellentesque dui aliquam. Ut id egestas ligula. Phasellus tincidunt turpis sit amet arcu consequat eget consectetur dui pretium. Donec in nisi tincidunt nisi volutpat auctor. In dapibus pretium est quis pharetra. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

You fucking asshole, now you're just mocking people with real difficulties. There are children in schools all across the country who suffer from things like dyslexia, dyscalculia, even dysgraphia. They're the ones who benefit the most from those treatments you're so quick to label as "pseudoscience." Do you think you're funny? Do you have any empathy for the living people whose difficulties and suffering prove your crankery wrong? Fuck off. RachelW (talk) 02:13, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I think the only person I am mocking here is myself. Is the answer, to my ironic prose, employing more engaging and skillful teachers or using more powerful alpha-methylphenethylamine drugs? I would appreciate it if you would stop this rancid rabid rapaciousness and adopt a more rational raciprocal respectful refutation. A relaxing reflectful repose results in rapid relief. (Chill baby!) Thanks. --Dirk Steele (talk) 04:39, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Why is this now lorem ipsum? o_O Flatworms are fun! ^{Talk to me} 02:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It was always like that. Nihilist 03:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Not according to the history. Here is where it was changed. Nowhere Man (talk) 03:07, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I doubt you'd find many that would argue against the change being an improvement. --Damo^Hi 03:27, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

What kind of asshole would just change a person's post like that, without their permission? I think we should really respect Dirk's freedom of speech, lest we become IrrationalWiki. Nihilist 03:52, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I've never seen Dirk make so much sense, honestly. He should be thankful for the improvement. --Kels (talk) 04:25, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk's post was not an argument, it was just another one of his "humorous" pieces in which he mocks dyscalculia (aka math dyslexia) and giggles to himself about THC and ethanol and methylamphetamine. We're in no way obligated to tolerate such nonsense. RachelW (talk) 04:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Me giggle? I blame the weed... Dirk Steele (talk) 05:02, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

since Dirk is not autopatrolled , should his posts be reverted if they are not constructive , or is that going too far ? Hamster (talk) 05:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

On a talk page or in the forum? What's the point? Ignore. Ignore. Ignore. And if you simply can't ignore, then grow a bit until you can. 05:14, 16 December 2012 (UTC) C®ackeЯ

There's a certain quaintness to people who think "ignore the trolls" is a viable policy. Is this your first day in the internet? Great advice, but without some kind of moderation to back it up, it has literally a zero percent success rate. We'd love it if everyone on the internet were a zen master, if nobody ever responded to trolls (or even just people they don't like)... but that simply isn't true, and it's never going to magically turn true.

Moving Dirk's posts to forums is a decent interim compromise to discourage Dirk's inanity and discourage people from engaging him where people have to bear witness. I hope Dirk gets tired of this merry dance and either leaves or stops being a one-trick troll pony. If he doesn't, the former option may have to be expedited somewhat. Blue (pester) 05:33, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar. 05:23, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

A political act that demonstrates the nature of this site. No problem. It has happened many times before and will happen many times in the future. Time for bed methinks. I have got comic art (a cross between Kirby/Ditko/Crumb without the talent) deadlines to meet now so you probably do me a favour. Nighty night! Dirk Steele (talk) 04:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Great, now I'm almost certain beyond a reasonable doubt that he's a troll. The first thing that came to mind when a one trick pony obsessed with mental illness mentioned a talentless comic that crosses multiple series was Chris-Chan. He's probably an EDiot or a /b/tard. Frullic (talk) 17:00, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Drugs or Guns

This discussion was moved here from RationalWiki:Saloon bar. 22:57, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I think we can all agree of the tragedy of the recent events in Connecticut.... :( However i cant help but think that the American (especially teenaged) population are being prescribed with drug after drug ... to supposedly aid some kind of 'mental illness' whether it is depression/ADHD or some other psychiatric condition the IDC-10 chooses to impose on its victims... are these drugs really safe? or are these the real catalysts for such (in my opinion) mind fucking events...Penguin face (talk) 22:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Correlation is not cause. The US does not use the ICD much and the DSM-IV is the standard text - although many US psychiatrists are attempting to ignore the DSM5 in favour of the ICD. All drugs are capable of causing changes to the brain chemistry which may result in violence. Walk down any South Croydon high street on a Saturday night to experience such pandemonium. Psychiatric drugs are no different but I don't think this kind of thinking will gain you much popularity on this site. Also shooting incidents do not just occur in the USA. You must remember http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunblane_school_massacre Dirk Steele (talk) 23:06, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The opinion is that this young man seems to have been diagnosed with Autism. Being told that one suffers from an incurable brain disease so that his thoughts, feelings and beliefs are not his own but the result of a 'mental illness' probably is extremely disconcerting. I do not doubt that he was bullied by classmates which also contributed to his shyness and anxiety. He seems to have wanted revenge on the school, his mother and the school psychologist. Tragic. Dirk Steele (talk) 23:20, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Ah I get it. Someone I know is taking the piss. Cheers darling! xx Dirk Steele (talk) 23:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk Steele goes on and on and on and on

Sounds just like a virtual mental hospital to me. You guys just act like bully psychiatrists. Dirk Steele (talk) 05:59, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to check out Healey's First Law of Holes. JzG (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Rubbish. It is you lot that are digging the hole to put me into and calling it a crank space. I came to this site after reading this garbage http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Mental_illness_denial. This has been written by some spotty Anonymous teen in a guy fawkes mask who must have some beef with scientology. Compare it with this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry . The RW article undermines rationality, the scientific method, and anti authoritism and actually gives RW a bad reputation. All attempts by me change this article have been met with a fierce resistance and I have been blocked, placed in a vandal bin and now am going to be sent to crank space. Fine by me. I give up. RW is not worth the time. Dirk Steele (talk) 09:13, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk, the Rationalwiki community is heterogeneous. There is no "you lot". Sometimes, you know, when everybody is telling you that you're wrong, it's because you are wrong. And this is one of those cases. You have come to Rationalwiki with all guns blazing to promote an anti-psychiatry agenda. That has only a small intersection with RW's agenda, and the vast majority of RW users don't give a flying fuck about psychiatry one way or the other, whereas you appear to be deeply vested in one particular extreme view of psychiatry. Behaving as if the problem is everybody else will get you kicked out, because in the end people here have far better things to do with their time than continually refuting cranks. If you want to gain any traction here for your agenda then the only way you will do it is by playing nice; battering your head against the community, especially the longest-standing and most active members of the community, is 100% guaranteed not to work. JzG (talk) 09:45, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The fact that you call my view 'extreme' (my view is held by most clinical psychologists for example The British Psychological Society) betrays your ignorance. The fact is that RationalWiki's view on mental illness denial is 'extreme' and based around anti Hubbard and scientology for some strange reason. . Fine, if no-one is interested in psychiatry here but I thought that this site was dedicated to the scientific method and exposing medical quackery. I did not come here with 'all guns blazing' - quite the opposite if you read my first forum posts. But I will respond to being insulted and continual blocks. Fine, I accept that you have a long standing community - if you prefer to ignore science to cater for them well that says a lot about what this site actually is. Dirk Steele (talk) 12:26, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

So you perceive your view as being shared by psychologists do you? Zat is interesting. Very interesting. Also perfectly normal, I sink.

Of course, if it genuinely was a scientifically supported and widely accepted view, you wouldn't be here having this problem. But this obvious. JzG (talk) 20:15, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Psychiatry is the belief that 'strange' (i.e. mental illness) behaviours are caused by a medical disease that can be treated by drugs that rectify a genetic/biological/physical abnormality of the mind or brain. Psychologists disagree and think that 'mental distress' that manifests as 'abnormal' behaviour is caused by natural environmental and personal life stresses that can be cured by a talk therapy. (Of course they do not think that a true medical disease such as cancer or measles can be cured by just talking). They are anti-psychiatry. Other 'anti-psychiatrists' believe that the definition of mental illness is the result of a medicalization of the normal 'edges' of the human existential condition which are considered 'deviant' moral behaviour. So which do you think, of the three, science supports? I am here having a problem because the current ideological belief, despite scientific evidence, is in the psychiatric view. Dirk Steele (talk) 22:58, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

What you just said is so hilariously wrong and uninformed I'm actually kind of impressed.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 23:17, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

This is getting way off track. Could we maybe have a discussion about something that doesn't turn into a discussion about psychiatry? ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk Steele is involved, so, no. This must be about psychiatry, you fascist pig</sarcasm>--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 23:33, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

$('ul.special>li>a[href*="User:Dirk_Steele"]').parent().remove();

23:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Well the problem is that so many issues involve 'mental health'. You yourself have been talking about Breivik. Is he insane? Or not? Does he have a medically proven disease? I have investigated spree killers.. most are motivated by their idea of justice and revenge against perceived injustice. This is not an issue of a medical disease. Is it? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/17/us-killings-tragedies-pakistan-bug-splats Dirk Steele (talk) 23:47, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Dirk Steele is involved, so, no. This must be about psychiatry, you fascist pig</sarcasm>--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 23:33, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Typical insults from someone who rejects Popper. RationalWiki has been infiltrated by those who do not subscribe to the scientific method. 23:47, 20 December 2012 (UTC)Dirk Steele (talk)

Dirk, the end of the world is almost here, go have a beer and just drop this for a day or two? --Revolverman (talk) 23:54, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It revolves around mental health, Dirk, in as much as you are as mad as a badger and paranoid with it. That's really the only connection JzG (talk) 23:56, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

As has been explained to you plenty of times before, Popper's view is not the dominate force in the field of philosophy of science, and hasn't been for some time. --Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 23:57, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Dominate = verb. Dominant = adjective. Can you guys either bring this back on topic, wrap it up, or move it somewheres else? Thanks. Wėąṣėḷőįď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 00:02, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

And who has replaced the Popperian view as falsification as a demarcation of science and pseudoscience? I keep asking this question. Who should I read? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:17, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

There are many comments on the Saloon bar talking about the school shootings. There are many speculations about the mental health of such killers. Am I the only person not allowed to respond? ok. I get your drift. Sorry I cannot respond further cos I am in the vandal bin. Dirk Steele (talk) 00:17, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

If you discard falsifiability as a component of the scientific method thenwhat do you propose? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:17, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

"And who has replaced the Popperian view as falsification as a demarcation of science and pseudoscience?" This you have also been told more then once.--Just relax, and stay funny (talk) 00:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Who is it? No-one has told me. what should i read? Dirk Steele (talk) 00:48, 21 December 2012 (UTC)