Science, Forteans and Skeptics

[magicflute]

Here is a very interesting article that might make a good read.
Check it out.
Science, Forteans and Skeptics (http://www.stevedewey.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/essays/sci-fort-skeptic.htm)

[The Mighty Thor]

Originally posted by magicflute
Here is a very interesting article that might make a good read.
Check it out.
Science, Forteans and Skeptics (http://www.stevedewey.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/essays/sci-fort-skeptic.htm)

Excellent read. I intend to read the other essays there, too, especially "Continuing Popular Belief in the Supernatural in the Nineteenth Century."

I particularly noted:

Ironically, perhaps, while I was researching this essay, science provided a tentative reason for the differences in views between the Skeptics and the Forteans, and perhaps provided a solution to Fort's feeling that there were unexplained relations between the events in his notes. An article in New Scientist, headlined 'Paranormal beliefs linked to brain chemistry', describes how 'People with high levels of dopamine are more likely to find significance in coincidences, and pick out meaning and patterns where there are none.'(53) Ironically, science itself now seems able to explain why Forteans see patterns or meaning where Skeptics do not. Fort's old enemy, dogmatic science, attempts to explain him. How would Fort have felt?

Isn't it believed that "the biochemical basis of the disease schizophrenia may be an excess of the neurotransmitter substance dopamine, as high levels of dopamine and its metabolites, as well as increased dopamine receptors, are found in the brains of persons with schizophrenia"?

Notice how many psychics admit to having had a severe head trauma or serious starvation of brain oxygen before they got their 'powers'.

Notice how many 'ecstatics' of the past displayed the symptoms of epilepsy.

Notice how drugs, and ecstatic dancing is used in ritualistic shamanism to alter the consciousness.

I think the neurosciences will explain much more about how paranormal beliefs relate to brain functioning soon.

edited to change a '.' to a '?'

[The Mighty Thor]

oh, and did you happen to post this link at the FTMB? It would be interesting to see the differences between how it is discussed here, and how it is discussed over there.

Maybe we are all taking part in some kind of massive Fortean experiment? :)

"No! Stop it, please! Not the anal probe! Do it to Julia! I don't mind the rats, honest! Do it to Julia! Oh, er -- and can I watch?"

from "2084", by Georgina Orwell, not yet published.

[magicflute]

Nope I am not on the Fortean Board. But it would be interesting to see how they view these articles.

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Our currently popular neurochemical models of mental illnesses are just so much witchdoctering and quackery.

That said, it's not impossible that people who "latch onto" patterns quicker than others have differences in their brain function.

[Ed]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
Our currently popular neurochemical models of mental illnesses are just so much witchdoctering and quackery.




Why do you say that?

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Um... because they're so much witchdoctering and quackery?

The same reason homeopathy is witchdoctering and quackery. Research shows it's simply not the case.

[Toastrider]

I'll remember that when I talk to that friend of mine whose Tourette's Syndrome is kept under control through chemical treatment.

--Toasty

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Being able to control the conditions through pharmacology isn't the same as demonstrating a neurochemical basis for those conditions.

[patnray]

Exactly. And demonstrating different levels of various chemicals in the brains of those suffering from mental illness is a long way from proving causality. What's missing is a detailed description of how those chemical differences cause the observed symptoms, as well as an understanding of how the chemical "imbalances" arise. Treating the imbalances may alleviate symptoms, but does not prove they are the cause of the symptoms...

[Wrath of the Swarm]

And we haven't even been able to prove that the brains of the mentally ill demonstrate altered levels of certain neurotransmitters.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You guys have lost me. Are you saying anything other than "Just like with everything else about the brain, we are a long way from understanding exactly how mental illness works"? If so, I'd be fascinated to know what you are saying.

~~ Paul

[Ed]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
Um... because they're so much witchdoctering and quackery?

The same reason homeopathy is witchdoctering and quackery. Research shows it's simply not the case.

OK, armwaving aside, what do you mean, precisely.

[Wrath of the Swarm]

I am saying the the explanations you see in commercials and that you're likely to receive from your doctor or informational pamphlets, etc., is known to be incorrect. It has effectively been disproven. It is a discarded hypothesis contradicted by the available evidence.

There are medical conditions caused when homeostasis goes wrong and significantly more or less of various chemicals are produced. But the vast majority of mental illnesses do not show the patterns characteristic of such conditions. We don't know how the available treatments actually work, but we can safely say that they don't correct any "chemical imbalance", not that the existence of such imbalances has ever been shown. We can't explain what little evidence we do have, and we have no basis for suggesting that mental conditions are medical illnesses, no matter how severe they become. Quite simply, we don't know what's wrong, we don't know how or why our treatments help, and we're not really sure how effective they are in the first place.

[Ed]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
I am saying the the explanations you see in commercials and that you're likely to receive from your doctor or informational pamphlets, etc., is known to be incorrect. It has effectively been disproven. It is a discarded hypothesis contradicted by the available evidence.

There are medical conditions caused when homeostasis goes wrong and significantly more or less of various chemicals are produced. But the vast majority of mental illnesses do not show the patterns characteristic of such conditions. We don't know how the available treatments actually work, but we can safely say that they don't correct any "chemical imbalance", not that the existence of such imbalances has ever been shown. We can't explain what little evidence we do have, and we have no basis for suggesting that mental conditions are medical illnesses, no matter how severe they become. Quite simply, we don't know what's wrong, we don't know how or why our treatments help, and we're not really sure how effective they are in the first place.

There is a world of difference between a medical theory being disproven and homeopathy. There is nothing wrong with a palliative either. I don't get your point.

If you are suggesting that medical science has no idea of what causes any mental illness I think that you need to be a bit more specific. On the surface of it I am doubtful of that claim but am unwilling to do a lot of research if it is a woo-based philosophy. So, perhaps you have a reference or two?

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Well, I have an excellent one, but I suspect you'll doubt its evenhandness without reading it.

Try looking for Blaming the Brain by S. Valenstein. Valenstein is a Professor Emeritus in psychology and knows his subject quite well. He's about as far from a woo as you can get. He goes over the history of biological psychology and psychiatry and builds what I consider to be a strong case for the thesis that we really don't understand mental illnesses any more than we did fifty years ago.

[Ed]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
Well, I have an excellent one, but I suspect you'll doubt its evenhandness without reading it.

Try looking for Blaming the Brain by S. Valenstein. Valenstein is a Professor Emeritus in psychology and knows his subject quite well. He's about as far from a woo as you can get. He goes over the history of biological psychology and psychiatry and builds what I consider to be a strong case for the thesis that we really don't understand mental illnesses any more than we did fifty years ago.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/137089_mentalhealth29.html

OK, suppose I provisionally agree with you. Now what?

[Wrath of the Swarm]

Um... kill all psychiatrists?

Seriously, I'm not sure how many other ways there are to force the current system out of the general consciousness. Look at how long it took to get Freudianism out, and that was even more obviously garbage.

[CurtC]

So you're saying that we can help the symptoms of mental illness with chemicals, but we don't understand the fundamentals of what's going on with them. Then you want to get rid of those professionals who are capable of prescribing those chemicals? Why?

[Wrath of the Swarm]

We can't even help the symptoms all that well.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Perhaps, but I suspect that many people helped "not all that well" would rather be helped some than none at all.

It's the same old story with all of medicine: Limp along while you try to figure out how the hell the human body works.

Biology and medicine: Difficult.

~~ Paul

[Ed]

Originally posted by Wrath of the Swarm
We can't even help the symptoms all that well.

It depends. I know some people who can only hold it together with drugs. Did you have a bad experience?

[Wrath of the Swarm]

No. I merely have an obsessive interest in the negative consequences of unjustified faith and the improper use of authority or influence. Problems in the field of medicine unfortunately fit into both of those categories much of the time.