After years of hearing and reading various discourses and arguments involving the phrase “scientific fact,” one recognizes a major societal misunderstanding about this concept. The phrase is thrown about in support or denial of numerous viewpoints, but it is often either misunderstood or misapplied.
I heard the phrase misused regularly on National Public Radio during interviews about diverse religious beliefs. The phrase is also often misused when promoting psychiatry, psychiatric drugs, and other psychiatric treatments.
A FACT is something that can be proven to exist by visible evidence. SCIENCE is the expertness resulting from knowledge gained and verified by exact observation and correct thinking.
The ability to accurately observe, and relate those observations, is sometimes lacking in this society, and sometimes observations are outright falsified for personal or corporate greed.
An OPINION is an attitude, concept or belief that is potentially subject to change with increasing knowledge or experience, and may or not be based on any facts. It may be based on what one thinks, or what others think, rather than on what is proven or known to be true.
Contrary to what the media want you to believe, the press does not always mold public opinion, which is influenced more by word of mouth, by people who are capable of accurately observing, recording and relating their observations and conclusions.
It is therefore one’s direct responsibility to observe for oneself, to find out what is true for oneself, form one’s own counsel on important topics, and do not spread false opinions when the facts are so easily accessible. We think that psychiatric fraud and abuse might be an important topic for you, your children, and your society.
There is a right way to create a science, called the Scientific Method. Basically it involves observation of phenomena, collection of data, creation of a theory, and testing of the theory by repeated observation and controlled experiments.
It doesn’t hurt, along the way, to keep in mind a constructive purpose, such as helping people get along better in life.
On the other hand, psychiatry is Junk Science. By that is meant biased observation; biased, misrepresented, falsified, or fabricated data; spurious inference; wishful thinking; logical trickery; and a destructive purpose highlighted by personal greed and the suppression of imagined enemies.
Psychiatric “disorders” are not medical diseases. Psychiatrists deal exclusively with mental “disorders,” not proven diseases. Psychiatry has never established the cause of any “mental disorders.” The theory that mental disorders derive from a “chemical imbalance” in the brain is unproven opinion, not fact. The brain is not the real cause of life’s problems.
The psychiatric billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, has become so widely relied upon within society that it has taken on the aura of scientific fact. Millions now use and believe in its diagnostic abilities, never once suspecting that the whole premise and the system itself are fraudulent. These people are at risk of making seriously wrong, even fatal, turns in either their own lives, or the lives of others.
For over four decades, CCHR has worked to expose and eradicate psychiatric violations of human rights and restore human rights and dignity to the field of mental health. CCHR’s work will only be complete when psychiatry’s fraudulent practices are eliminated and it is held accountable for its harmful treatments and human rights violations. Help CCHR St. Louis accomplish this goal with your tax-deductible donations and volunteer help.
Great piece!
it’s sad that we have to be reminded to be true to our own observations, but this does seem to be the case.