> By the way, the director of the NIMH isn't the "highest-ranking psychiatrist". That title doesn't exist.
Of course it does. In psychiatry, authority matters. In science, it doesn't. How else could Insel unilaterally describe psychiatry as a pseudoscience and rule that the DSM is to be abandoned, as he recently did? That would never be accepted in a scientific field, where authority is disparaged.
How else could a panel of authorities vote to include some imaginary conditions, and exclude other imaginary conditions, from the latest DSM? They did just that, and one change from the past was that the votes were held in secret. Another difference was that the governmental agencies that rely on the DSM have decided to abandon it.
>>The bottom line is that a scientist would never say, "We don't know what this is, but let's offer clinical treatments anyway -- because the public doesn't understand either science or our poverty of knowledge."
> This is also not true. Doctors offer treatments that aren't definitively explained all the time.
This kind of reply makes me wonder what is the point of this exchange. Doctors are not scientists, they are to medical research what an engineer or a technician is to a scientist in another field. Further, if a doctor really offered a treatment not vetted by research, he would have his license pulled.
> What is your opinion, and how did you form it?
My opinions are irrelevant, and I have not been expressing opinions, but facts. Note my use of literature references to support any facts I post.
Of course it does. In psychiatry, authority matters. In science, it doesn't. How else could Insel unilaterally describe psychiatry as a pseudoscience and rule that the DSM is to be abandoned, as he recently did? That would never be accepted in a scientific field, where authority is disparaged.
How else could a panel of authorities vote to include some imaginary conditions, and exclude other imaginary conditions, from the latest DSM? They did just that, and one change from the past was that the votes were held in secret. Another difference was that the governmental agencies that rely on the DSM have decided to abandon it.
>>The bottom line is that a scientist would never say, "We don't know what this is, but let's offer clinical treatments anyway -- because the public doesn't understand either science or our poverty of knowledge."
> This is also not true. Doctors offer treatments that aren't definitively explained all the time.
This kind of reply makes me wonder what is the point of this exchange. Doctors are not scientists, they are to medical research what an engineer or a technician is to a scientist in another field. Further, if a doctor really offered a treatment not vetted by research, he would have his license pulled.
> What is your opinion, and how did you form it?
My opinions are irrelevant, and I have not been expressing opinions, but facts. Note my use of literature references to support any facts I post.