Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale? (2007) | Hacker News Reader

Modern Cosmology: Science or Folktale? (2007)

americanscientist.org

16 pointsdak17 comments

PhysicsForums had a thread on this article back around the time it was published:

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=182229

The thread contains a link to a paper published in a scientific journal by the article's author (Michael Disney), which is considerably more strident than the article is.

A terrific article about cosmology, a field that contains a surprising number of unanswered questions and parameters without explanation. A candid cosmologist would say, as this article does in essence, "It's embarrassing what we don't know about the universe."

Meanwhile psychiatry and psychology, which don't even shape theories to be ridiculed and dismissed for lack of evidence, tell us in no uncertain terms that we're sick in the head and need drugs and/or therapy.

http://www.cdc.gov/features/mentalhealthsurveillance/

Quote: "... published studies report that about 25% of all U.S. adults have a mental illness and that nearly 50% of U.S. adults will develop at least one mental illness during their lifetime ..."

To me, the fact that half of everyone is now, or at some point in the future will be, diagnosed as mentally ill, calls into question the meaning of "normal". But maybe that's just me. And maybe the existence of official diagnoses like NOS (Not Otherwise Specified) is one of the problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personality_disorder_not_otherw...

Quote: "This diagnosis may be given when no other personality disorder defined in the DSM fits the patient's symptoms."

Well. That's a relief. Certainly better than telling someone there's nothing wrong with him and sending him home.

Toothaches are also common, perhaps we should stop treating them because they're just "normal"?

It's embarrassing what we don't know about psychology. The DSM is not a theoretical framework, it's a diagnostic tool to match symtopms with known disorders, and it's constantly evolving. As long as we don't know everything about the mind or presume to know everything, there will be people who have mental problems which cannot be neatly categorised. Of course it's important to keep improving the categories and not have too many catch-all diagnoses being made, but ultimately when the data doesn't fit the model the solution is to improve the model, not dismiss the data.

> Toothaches are also common, perhaps we should stop treating them because they're just "normal"?

Toothaches aren't metaphysical ailments as are mental illnesses, they're open to objective diagnosis. Different dentists don't argue about which diagnosis the toothache sufferer really needs.

> ... ultimately when the data doesn't fit the model the solution is to improve the model, not dismiss the data.

Well, it seems the NIMH disagrees. The NIMH has recently ruled that the DSM may no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, on the ground that it has no scientific content:

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-rats-of-n-i-m-h

Make no mistake about it -- because of the controversial method by which DSM-5 was created, and its very questionable content, the NIMH and many other agencies intend to dump the DSM and replace it with a more scientific framework described here:

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...

No more "Not Otherwise Specified" diagnoses, it seems.

The DSM exists to give labels to groups of symptoms, it's not a theoretical framework and all the above problems are due to people mistaking it as such.

You seem to be conflating the DSM as it used by clinicians and the DSM as it is used by researchers, its use by researchers is indeed dubious, but clinicians need a lingua franca for making diagnoses - they're not academics.

If you want theories, there's always psychoanalysis :p

Spit the hook. You are being trolled.

DSM is a political tool, not a public health one. It represents the sum total of the mechanisms that the new state religion (psychology/psychiatry) can apply to its trouble-makers and problem sources. If you can call someone crazy, no matter what they are saying or how important it is to the society as a whole, you can put them away and have society ignore them completely. That it is embedded as a device for use by the medical field is just a bonus; after all, you can't control a population unless you control its health.

Never forget, there is nothing at all scientific about the composition of this material. It is functionally a state religion.

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