David Rosenhan’s fraudulent Thud experiment set back psychiatry for decades

wikipedia link to get summary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment

While this is fascinating and I'm glad to have read it, it doesn't substantiate that this experiment set back psychiatry. The fact that the DSM-IV was prompted or encouraged by the experiment is suggested, but there's no argument for it. Even beyond that, the article doesn't even hint at an argument that the DSM-IV set back psychiatry (except offering the bare assertion that reductionism is false).

Of course, the DSM is very controversial, and many people could fill in the argument, but this article doesn't do it.

...yes? Hearing about something doesn't make it true.

> It's still entirely possible that it happened as reported, but that the (properly) confidential records were destroyed/lost.

Did you read the article? This isn't possible at all.

> the distinguished psychologist Eleanor Maccoby, who was in charge of assessing Rosenhan’s tenure file, reported that she and others were deeply suspicious of him, and that they found it ‘impossible to know what he had really done, or if he had done it’, granting him tenure only because of his popularity

True, this is just circumstantial.

> At various times, Rosenhan had proffered sometimes contradictory biographical fragments about pseudo-patients 2 through to 8, but even with the assistance of a private detective, these leads led nowhere.

Hmm, it'd be hard for everything to have happened as reported, given that what was reported contradicted itself.

> In a larger sense, it scarcely matters, because Cahalan uncovered so much other evidence of Rosenhan’s malfeasance and lies.

Hmmmmmmmm...

> He claimed, for example, to have carefully coached his volunteers before sending them forth. Bill Underwood and Harry Lando emphatically denied this.

OK, now we know it didn't happen as reported even in cases where there wasn't an internal contradiction in the reporting.

> Lando appears to have been dismissed from the study, not because he violated protocol, but because, as Rosenhan incredulously noted about his confinement, ‘HE LIKES IT!’

The "throw away any data you don't like" school of research.

> Most damning of all, though, are Rosenhan’s own medical records. When he was admitted to the hospital, it was not because he simply claimed to be hearing voices but was otherwise ‘normal’.

Note that this is what he reported he had claimed.

> On the contrary, he told his psychiatrist his auditory hallucinations included the interception of radio signals and listening in to other people’s thoughts. He had tried to keep these out by putting copper over his ears, and sought admission to the hospital because it was ‘better insulated there’. For months, he reported he had been unable to work or sleep, financial difficulties had mounted and he had contemplated suicide. His speech was retarded, he grimaced and twitched, and told several staff that the world would be better off without him.

Not sure why you're being down voted. Maybe just tone with the 'hmmmmm' and such. Anyway, I agree that there appears to be ample evidence for this conclusion.