Topic: Occam's razor and other scientific/thought principles - EXPANDING INTO YOUR MIND

[Chief Piggum]

I prefer Braniggan's law myself.

[madras]

In response to Open C, I can't see how any psychology can be ultimately worthless.

Fair enough; I just don't see the value in making subjective judgements and attempting to use those judgements to objectify individuals (if you see what I mean). I'm not writing it all off; just the bits that everybody already knows, and the bits that are so fuzzy that even psychologists don't agree with themselves

that goes for most disciplines though doesn't it, medicine, economics, philosophy ?

[OpenC]

Quite possibly.  I'm not talking about them, though  

Medicine I see a value in, even if it's more luck than judgement a lot of the time (is it?  I have no idea).  Economics I know next to nowt about, so I won't go there (seems to be just a lot of competing theories that are right for a few years then suddenly become catastrophically wrong).  Philosophy for its own sake is every bit as worthless as psychology, but generally more interesting

** edit

OK, maybe worthless is harsh, in retrospect.  But seriously, people don't know that the first priority for most folk is eating and sleeping?  People aren't aware that remembering is just the first step in knowing how to do something?  People get through their lives without ever thinking, "maybe not everybody sees the world the same way as I do, so their brains possibly work in a different way to mine"..?

[madras]

like the example i gave earlier, the use of psychology in advertising and mareketing. i'd guess it can also be used in areas of mental health but like the idea that you don't go to the docs when you have a cold (that is what i guess you are see as the 'self evident' part of it) but there will be more to it than that.

[OpenC]

I'm sure there will, and there are plenty of different branches (although I see advertising as something else; based on the same principles as psychology, perhaps, but with an entirely different application based on a talent for exploitation rather than identification).  Forensic psychology is the only one I have more than a basic knowledge of, partly because of my work but mostly because I lived with a forensic psychologist for a while who was forever trying to defend the discipline.  There is a lot to it, more than I'll ever know, but as I've already posted, I believe the premise is wrong - IMHO, five psychologists with different backgrounds but the same training could perform the same "battery of tests" (as they're fond of saying) on the same subject and come up with entirely different assessments of need and proposed treatments.

My opinion (and that's all it is) is that a lot of pure psychology is based on giving names to, and formalising, common sense observations which virtually every adult is capable of making for themselves, and which they don't feel the need to write or preach about.  But I'm sure this isn't supposed to be the OpenC vs. Psychology thread

[madras]

you know what the problem with common sense is though ?

[OpenC]

There are a few, I'm sure   What's the problem with common sense?

[madras]

it's not very common yet everyone thinks they have it.

[OpenC]

OK then, I'll rephrase

My opinion (and that's all it is) is that a lot of pure psychology is based on giving names to, and formalising, observations which virtually every adult is capable of making for themselves.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

I prefer Braniggan's law myself.

'In the game of chess you can never let your adversary see your pieces'?

[madras]

OK then, I'll rephrase

My opinion (and that's all it is) is that a lot of pure psychology is based on giving names to, and formalising, observations which virtually every adult is capable of making for themselves.

fwiw i think there are facets to psychology where you're synopsis is spot on, far too much to it to paont the whole discipline like that.

[OpenC]

Probably, aye.  As I said a page ago, I should have said that most of the psychology I've come into contact with is self-evident or worthless.

[madras]

Probably, aye.  As I said a page ago, I should have said that most of the psychology I've come into contact with is self-evident or worthless.

so is most medical advice.

[OpenC]

Well, that's the exact opposite, you see (again, from my point of view only); the only significant problem I've ever had is asthma, and in that respect I'm much better off for seeking medical advice and it's absolutely not something I could have done myself.  Which, I guess, proves your point in a way - the pros are there to point out what isn't easy, rather than what is.  When it comes to psychology, though, (at work at least) I see more argument over diagnosis of complicated cases than I do concord.  And then they get overruled by psychiatrists and mental health specialists anyway

[OzzieMandias]

Reading this at the moment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/13/thinking-fast-slow-daniel-kahneman

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

Well, that's the exact opposite, you see (again, from my point of view only); the only significant problem I've ever had is asthma, and in that respect I'm much better off for seeking medical advice and it's absolutely not something I could have done myself.  Which, I guess, proves your point in a way - the pros are there to point out what isn't easy, rather than what is.  When it comes to psychology, though, (at work at least) I see more argument over diagnosis of complicated cases than I do concord.  And then they get overruled by psychiatrists and mental health specialists anyway

How about that Self Management argument (that I've literally just read about)? If knowledge and manipulation of the psychology of illness can lead to the reduced need for medication, then surely any psychological thought or theory put forward in the quest to achieve that is valid, even if later proven to be worthless in that instance?

[Haz]

I quite like Hitchen's Razor:

What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

[Colo's Short and Curlies]

Quite possibly.  I'm not talking about them, though  

Medicine I see a value in, even if it's more luck than judgement a lot of the time (is it?  I have no idea).  Economics I know next to nowt about, so I won't go there (seems to be just a lot of competing theories that are right for a few years then suddenly become catastrophically wrong).

Economics is great.

Come up with a theory that disputes a previous theory
Put a decent time span on its cycle
Let people get excited about it
Realise at the end of the cycle it doesn't work
Proclaim that 'of course it doesn't, it was designed for a perfect envirnoment without human input or thought'
Go back to an older theory
Repeat

[OpenC]

Aye, sounds about right

[FrenchWilliam]

Not sure if exactly on topic, but this is a good page if you want a bit of a head f***: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_paradoxes

In particular I quite like: "There's always an exception to the rule, except to the exception of the rule—which is, in of itself, an accepted exception of the rule."

And this one: "It seems like you can replace any component of a ship, and it is still the same ship. So you can replace them all, one at a time, and it is still the same ship. However, you can then take all the original pieces, and assemble them into a ship. That, too, is the same ship you began with." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

[OpenC]

http://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/lonely-shy-now-you-re-mentally-ill-too-1.1231620

Who'd have thought it

This was all over Radio 4 and 5 this morning, but couldn't find a BBC link so this one will do

Nick Craddock, professor of psychiatry at the University of Liverpool, said the expansionist tendencies of the manual were pulling in more aspects of behaviour and cognition. “That means medicalising normal human behaviour,” he said. “It risks labelling people who are otherwise normal.”

[madras]

http://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/lonely-shy-now-you-re-mentally-ill-too-1.1231620

Who'd have thought it

This was all over Radio 4 and 5 this morning, but couldn't find a BBC link so this one will do

Nick Craddock, professor of psychiatry at the University of Liverpool, said the expansionist tendencies of the manual were pulling in more aspects of behaviour and cognition. “That means medicalising normal human behaviour,” he said. “It risks labelling people who are otherwise normal.”

cuts both ways, not everyone who sneezes will have the flu, just because many don't doesn't mean none of those that sneeze have the flu.

[OpenC]

Indeed, and what's the value of a diagnosis of "on-the-one-hand-maybe-flu-on-the-other-hand-maybe-something-else"?

[OpenC]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/uk-mental-illness-diagnosis-idUKTRE81825O20120209

Better write up from Reuters.

(Reuters) - Millions of healthy people - including shy or defiant children, grieving relatives and people with fetishes - may be wrongly labelled mentally ill by a new international diagnostic manual, specialists said on Thursday.

In a damning analysis of an upcoming revision of the influential Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), psychologists, psychiatrists and other experts said new categories of mental illness identified in the book were at best "silly" and at worst "worrying and dangerous".

"Many people who are shy, bereaved, eccentric, or have unconventional romantic lives will suddenly find themselves labelled as mentally ill," said Peter Kinderman, head of Liverpool University's Institute of Psychology at a briefing in London about widespread concerns over the manual.

"It's not humane, it's not scientific, and it won't help decide what help a person needs."

The DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and has symptoms and other criteria for diagnosing mental disorders. It is used internationally and seen as the diagnostic "bible" for mental health medicine.

No one from the APA was immediately available for comment.

More than 11,000 health professionals have already signed a petition (at dsm5-reform.com) calling for the development of the fifth edition of the manual to be halted and re-thought.

Some diagnoses - for conditions like "oppositional defiant disorder" and "apathy syndrome" - risk devaluing the seriousness of mental illness and medicalising behaviours most people would consider normal or just mildly eccentric, the experts said.

At the other end of the spectrum, the new DSM, due out next year, could give medical diagnoses for serial rapists and sex abusers - under labels like "paraphilic coercive disorder" - and may allow offenders to escape prison by providing what could be seen as an excuse for their behaviour, they added.

RADICAL, RECKLESS, AND INHUMANE

Simon Wessely of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London said a look back at history should make health experts ask themselves: "Do we need all these labels?"

He said the 1840 Census of the United States included just one category for mental disorder, but by 1917 the APA was already recognising 59. That rose to 128 in 1959, to 227 in 1980, and again to around 350 disorders in the fastest revisions of DSM in 1994 and 2000.

Allen Frances of Duke University and chair of the committee that oversaw the previous DSM revision, said DSM-5 would "radically and recklessly expand the boundaries of psychiatry" and result in the "medicalisation of normality, individual difference, and criminality".

David Pilgrim of Britain's University of Central Lancashire said it was "hard to avoid the conclusion that DSM-5 will help the interests of the drug companies".

"Madness and misery exist but they come in many shapes and sizes," he said. "We risk treating the experience and conduct of people as if they are botanical specimens waiting to be identified and categorised in rigid boxes.

"That would itself be a form of collective madness for all those complicit in the continuing pseudo-scientific exercise."

Nick Craddock of Cardiff University's department of psychological medicine and neurology, who also spoke at the London briefing, cited depression as a key example of where DSM's broad categories were going wrong.

Whereas in previous editions, a person who had recently lost a loved one and was suffering low moods would be seen as experiencing a normal human reaction to bereavement, the new DSM criteria would ignore the death, look only at the symptoms, and class the person as having a depressive illness.

Other examples of diagnoses cited by experts as problematic included "gambling disorder", "internet addiction disorder" and "oppositional defiant disorder" - a condition in which a child "actively refuses to comply with majority's requests" and "performs deliberate actions to annoy others".

"That basically means children who say 'no' to their parents more than a certain number of times," Kinderman said. "On that criteria, many of us would have to say our children are mentally ill."

[madras]

Indeed, and what's the value of a diagnosis of "on-the-one-hand-maybe-flu-on-the-other-hand-maybe-something-else"?

as much as the value of "it's definitly something but we'll not treat anything as we aren't 100% certain of what it is".

i've a bit experience of kids with learning difficulties/ASD type things, some don't really appear to have any problems, some really do, it's often more a question of time, monitoring and treatment to find out who really needs the help.