Posted by Zeke (with horns pitchfork) on January 11, 2000, at 23:20:41
In reply to To Noa, posted by judy on January 11, 2000, at 11:18:41
JUDY> more people being DRUGGED unnecessarily
Where'd I hear this terminology before? The term 'drugged' implies coercion and control -- I mean, do we say some people are 'appropriately drugged'? It's clearly pejorative.
JUDY> ADHD is dxed 10x more often in America as Britain and feels it is likely to be caused by the differences between the countries psychiatrists rather than childrenDoes this mean American psychiatrists overdiagnose or British psychiatrists underdiagnose ADD? I would venture to say that 50 years ago, 10 times as many depressed people were treated with psychoanalysis. So? (This approaches what Patricia Churchland calls 'Arguments of Ignorance'.)
Am I being unfair to Breggin? Prior to the November 98 ADD Conference, he wrote a piece (still on his site) that goes:To Protest The Make Up Of the Conference
To demand the modification of this conference to include a broader diversity of opinion about “ADHD” and psychostimulants:
...Write to the Director ... at NIH who oversees consensus conferences AND DEMAND THAT HE STOP THE CONFERENCE.Some don't see this as 'over zealous':
ZEAL: eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something
How does that shoe fit Noa?
The whole Breggin matter has the flavor of something Bertrnd Russell writes about in 'An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish':When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God. For, as all right-thinking people were aware, lightning is sent by God to punish impiety or some other grave sin-the virtuous are never struck by lightning. Therefore if God wants to strike any one, Benjamin Franklin ought not to defeat His design; indeed, to do so is helping criminals to escape. But God was equal to the occasion, if we are to believe the eminent Dr. Price, one of the leading divines of Boston. Lightning having been rendered ineffectual by the "iron points invented by the sagacious Dr. Franklin," Massachusetts was shaken by earthquakes, which Dr. Price perceived to be due to God's wrath at the "iron points." In a sermon on the subject he said, "In Boston are more erected than elsewhere in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God." Apparently, however, Providence gave up all hope of curing Boston of its wickedness, for, though lightning rods became more and more common, earthquakes in Massachusetts have remained rare.
Interestingly, Russell adds later:
Belief in "nature" and what is "natural" is a source of many errors. It used to be, and to some extent still is, powerfully operative in medicine. ... Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent.
Perhaps the world would lose some of its interest and variety if such beliefs were wholly replaced by cold science. ... A wise man will enjoy the goods of which there is a plentiful supply, and of intellectual rubbish he will find an abundant diet, in our own age as in every other.
Or as Churchland says, "Given that neuroscience is still very much in its early stages, it is actually not a very interseting fact that someone or other cannot imagine a certain kind of explanation of some brain phenomenon." But later says, "Learn the science, do the science, and see what happens."
Alas, I seem to sense old intellectual recipes cooking.
PS It's unfortunate that Ivan Goldberg didn't respond to Judy's query, but I doubt she's tried contacting the National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association
poster:Zeke (with horns pitchfork)
thread:18307
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000101/msgs/18769.html