Isn't assad the dictator of Syria a psychopath

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by river, Oct 28, 2012.

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  1. ccdan

    ccdan Registered Member

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    appeal to authority.... no surprises, don't worry.... I'm gonna get back and challenge you piece by piece...
     
    ccdan, Jan 16, 2013
    #41

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  3. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    I'm a moderator on this website, so I am the authority. It is my job to ensure that the rules are followed and that the scientific method is respected on SciForums. The Rule of Laplace (often called "Sagan's Law" by American TV viewers) reminds us that extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat them with respect. Most absolute statements are extraordinary, and to say that there is no science in a respected branch of health care is certainly as absolute as it is preposterous.

    Excuse me, but you are the one who has been challenged. Please present the evidence to support your extraordinary assertion. Support the argument you have already made before moving it forward. This is how scholarship works.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Jan 17, 2013
    #42

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  5. rodereve

    rodereve Registered Member

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    Yeah, he is a psychopath. I would like to think that he is actually crazy, and only hears yaysayers that only advise to stay in power, and only hears of his supporters and actually believes that the rioters/revolutionists are a small fraction of the country and some plot made by the US to overthrow radical islamic governments and instate their own puppet to avoid any future Irans. I would hate to think he's doing this intentionally, ordering his armies and killing his own people, because that would be pure evil. Plus, someone hacked his phone and he had some text convo with his wife about bringing home Harry potter movies for Christmas, so I think if he was pure evil I think he'd be bringing home some like pro-nazi movies or evil dead or something.

    Anyway, I blame Russia and China for vetoing action on the issue. They uphold the sovereignty of a country (obviously, they're closet dictatorship countries themselves) instead of the rights of the people, the rights which the country in question should be upholding not violating. Well its not like we're indifferent about it, but we're not particularly adamant on taking the cost of another war. Why is it that US has to be the watchdogs of the world, why can't China step up for once lol
     
    rodereve, Jan 19, 2013
    #43

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  7. ccdan

    ccdan Registered Member

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    I'm going to open a new thread to explain in detail why there's no science in psychiatry and why people are so misled by this field.

    However, I'd like to point out a few things that you don't seem to understand:
    - when someone claims that something exists(like science in psychiatry), the burden of proof lies with that person/group, not with those who claim that it doesn't exist
    - there's no such thing as "extraordinary evidence" just as there's no "weak evidence" or "strong evidence" - terms used by the pseudoscience crowd and incompetent "researchers" when they can't prove something because of uncertainty (which in real science means "we don't know")
    - "Sagan's law" is just popular nonsense
    - if you do care about the scientific method, then you either: 1. have your own (probably "soft") definition (which has really nothing to do with real, rigorous science) or 2. never bothered to check whether the scientific method is used in psychiatry (like opening the DSM and checking a few random "illnesses/disorders" to see what's the scientific, objectively verifiable basis behind them)
    - the fact that many others regard a certain field as being scientific, does not really make that field scientific (logical fallacy, appeal to popularity)
    - the fact that others, whom you regard as "authorities" in certain fields, consider those fields scientific, does not make those fields scientific (logical fallacy, appeal to authority)
    - the fact that certain "tools" (like statistics for example) typically used in science, are used in a certain field, does not make that field scientific (logical fallacy, non-sequitur - otherwise we could conclude that astrology is scientific, because astrologers use statistics and make correlations which they interpret as causation - which is by the way a very popular fallacy used by the pseudoscience crowd and unfortunately also by many apparently "legitimate" researchers who are incompetent and/or have their own "agenda" and/or have no funds for proper research, etc.)
    - relative, subjective, non-quantifiable, non-verifiable concepts/data/etc - have absolutely no place in science
    - there's no such thing as "we strive to use the scientific method" - no, the scientific method is either used or not(experimentation is indispensable, because that's what the scientific method entails), and a hypothesis is either confirmed or not... there are no middle ways...
    - in science, scientists are not afraid to say "We don't know" and don't seek to convince the public/ a certain party, that a hypothesis is "probably"/"almost certainly"/etc. true/false using shady tactics (logical fallacies, bad data/sampling, etc)
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2013
    ccdan, Jan 20, 2013
    #44
  8. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    There are entire libraries full of evidence for science in psychiatry. If you disagree with the evidence, that's fine, but please state your disagreement. But to state that the evidence is non-existent or fraudulent (I'm not sure what your assertion is, actually) is nothing more than crackpottery.

    Laplace's statement was: "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness." Of course that has been translated from Renaissance French into reasonably modern English. My own rendition, "Extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat them with respect," translates it into the contentious vernacular of the Internet Era, when everyone feels qualified to challenge everything just because they know how to use a computer, and authority is now conferred on people who have good writing skills rather than peer-reviewed work. I chose the word "extraordinary" because Laplace and Sagan chose it (Sagan explicitly in the phrase "extraordinary evidence,") not seriously expecting someone to jump up and exclaim that he has no respect for either of these men.

    Are you really characterizing Laplace as a pseudoscientist? And you want us to keep reading?

    Sagan's words are, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," a perfectly reasonable, although excessively succinct, translation of Laplace's original.

    You've dismissed Laplace, one of the most respected early scientists, and you've dismissed Sagan, one of the most respected contemporary popularizers of science. Is this your way of attempting to gain respect for yourself? Based upon these assertions, do you really expect anyone to pay attention when you now say that you also dismiss psychiatry? You were wrong twice but third time's the charm?

    Whether or not psychiatry actually uses science, it's statistically likely that some of the people reading this thread have had their lives improved by it (just as the friend I spoke of in another thread was helped tremendously by an astrologer, even though she admitted that all she was doing was practicing what we would now call the psychotherapy of Doctor Phil and dressing it up in a way that her other clients respected). These people will probably put you on IGNORE and never read another word you write.

    I know that psychiatry is probably the softest of the "soft sciences." You might actually have a valid point here. But your communication skills are so bad and so strident that you might have a hard time getting anyone to listen long enough to find out.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Jan 22, 2013
    #45
  9. ccdan

    ccdan Registered Member

    Messages:
    40
    If there are "entire libraries" full of psychiatric science, then it should be no problem for you to show us the purely scientific evidence that proves that, say, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (random example) is indeed a real, biological medical condition.

    LOL! How did you get to that conclusion?

    Yeah, and I said "there's no such thing as extraordinary evidence." Evidence is just evidence. What's wrong with what I said?

    Oh, and by the way, maybe we should also believe that alchemy is scientific because it was studied by one of the greatest scientists in the history of mankind: Isaac Newton. Or maybe not?

    I was wrong twice??? Really? When?

    It's even more likely that there are more people who claim to have been helped by religion. But that doesn't prove the existence of god.
    And one of "those people" already contradicts me ferociously on a different thread.

    Well, it seems that you aren't that sure about the nature of science in psychiatry...
     
    ccdan, Jan 23, 2013
    #46
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