Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
theatlantic.com
Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
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Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#2An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described. To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, but until that happens, it's not science, it's anecdote.
Interestingly, the director of the NIMH has recently taken the same position, ruling that that DSM (psychiatry and psychology's "bible") can no longer be used as the basis for scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content:
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia...
Quote: "... each edition [of the DSM] has ensured that clinicians use the same terms in the same ways. The weakness is its lack of validity."
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#3An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described . To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, b…
To expand upon your point, biology lucked out with Carl Linnaeus. It so happened that Linnaeus's methods of classifying and naming biological organisms happened to correspond very well to other scientifically relevant concepts (genetics, etc.)[0]. We have no similar guarantee that the same applies to classifications of behaviors.
That said - and let me qualify this by saying I have many complaints with the DSM (particularly the DSM V) - the fact that the DSM classifications may not be helpful for research purposes does not mean that they are not helpful for clinical treatment. Clinicians who use it properly (a big caveat) use it to ensure that they are all using a common vocabulary, though with an understanding that the vocabulary is imperfect.
This is why I get very frustrated when I see online discussions about mental disorders devolve into recitations of the DSM diagnostic criteria as if they were checklists. The DSM provides a convenient library, but the clinician still has to identify which portions are relevant and which are not, and to write the "code" that glues those relevant portions together.
[0] Not that they weren't without fault, but they were an important early effort that has been revised in modern day.
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#4An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described . To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, b…
[deleted]
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#5An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described . To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, b…
[deleted]
Umm.
> Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science
So no, he didn't say they were useless.
Why can't he lodge a criticism without throwing everything else out? Read the article he linked to. It's not crazy---they're just trying to be better.
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#6An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described . To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, b…
[deleted]
Psychiatry and psychology have probably taken lives as well.
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#7An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described . To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, b…
[deleted]
If you recognize engineering as the "clinical" side of science, then science has saved lives.
And cost lives too, of course.
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#8> This is a classic example of poor scientific journalism and I believe it became so popular due to widespread deficits in scientific literacy. You don’t have to be a neuroscientist to see that there are huge problems with his story. You simply have view this story objectively have a healthy dose of skepticism without quickly deferring to the authority figure. There are simple questions which are never addressed here. What experiment was being done during each PET scan? If the psychopaths and Dr. Fallon were both completing a morality task and they both had low activity in certain regions, THEN that would be something more tangible. This is simply showing a brain picture and not asking questions. We know that people are much more likely to believe something if there is a brain picture associated with it and this is further proof.
-- http://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/pseud...
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#9Karen Franklin had an interesting critique of his book, as well: http://www.amazon.com/review/R28SZH62Q6Y6AD/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt...
Re: Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
#10An interesting but scientifically useless account. Psychiatry and psychology will become useful to science only when such stories are validated by an effort to connect effects with causes -- to try to explain what has only been described . To date, these fields have gotten by with descriptions of things they cannot explain. Once explanations are proposed, they can be validated or falsified using empirical evidence, b…
To expand upon your point, biology lucked out with Carl Linnaeus. It so happened that Linnaeus's methods of classifying and naming biological organisms happened to correspond very well to other scientifically relevant concepts (genetics, etc.)[0]. We have no similar guarantee that the same applies to classifications of behaviors. That said - and let me qualify this by saying I have many complaints with the DSM (parti…
I agree with your comments about the DSM.
One of my biggest frustrations is that except for a subset of neuropsychologists, they have very poor understanding of how neurophysiology correlates with various "diagnosis".