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Comment by cjensen | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but notice we are all discussing the opinions of one guy, who is not a psychiatrist, regarding what he has seen in his practice. And this one guy, if you look at his "about the author stuff" is basically an activist left wing hates-the-system damn-the-capitalists kind of guy.

This is not science, it's opinion untethered from the constraints of evidence. If we want to have a long conversation about this, it would behoove us to start from science so that actual facts might be involved.

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I don't see why a mental health worker's critique on the culture and practices of other professionals in the field wouldn't be valid cause for discussion. If someone observes corruption in the field they are working in, is it not valid to raise the issue for discussion before performing a formal survey on how widespread that corruption might be?

What type of evidence exactly would satisfy your requirement?

I did not intend to suggest he should not raise his voice. Rather I suggest that a Hacker News discussion is not well-served by starting from his post due to the lack of factual (in the scientific sense) content.

Raising an issue that needs study is just plain Good Science. But it's a starter for science, not us.

Also the first part of your argument is ad hominem, and doesn't lend any logical support for his critique being invalid.

An ad hominem attack is an attack on the messenger when the messenger is carrying fact or reasoning that can be evaluated independent of the messenger.

In this case, my criticism is of the person who is providing an opinion and is not reporting any information which can be independently evaluated by us here. The character of this observer therefore does matter.

I did not make those characterizations with the intent of portraying him as a crazy man who should be categorically ignored. All of those characteristics I mentioned are fine things to have in a healthy and diverse body politic. Rather, I mentioned them to point out that we are attempting to divine the truth in an opinion about a portion of society made by someone with demonstrably eccentric opinions about society.

Lastly, thank you for being sensitive about what you saw as name-calling. We could use a lot less name-calling around here.

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