# Do any of you know what "science" is? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 26, 2009, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298 "2009-07-26T05:10:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/261 "2009-07-28T18:48:32Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > “Well, Mr. **DYoungEsq** , your physical exam, signs, symptoms, troponin and CK-MB levels and EKG all clearly indicate you’re having a myocardial infarction. However, since science can’t actually define “illness”, epistemiologically speaking and in the true Kuhnian sense of the word, we’re unable to offer you therapy at this time. We can have an aide read Nietsche to you, or if you prefer, Ray Nitschke.” Oh, that’s total crap. The fact that I’m suffering a myocardial infarct is demonstrable. The question of whether it is an “illness” is not science. Nor would we care if it was an “illness” or a “forthmagoa”; we would treat it. Try reading what I said for comprehension next time. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/262 "2009-07-28T19:03:27Z")
> [@SmashTheState](#): > > _“I have only made but one prayer in my life: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”_ – **Voltaire** I prefer: “Dear God, protect us from the people who believe in you.” ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/263 "2009-07-28T19:17:54Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Oh, that’s total crap. The fact that I’m suffering a myocardial infarct is demonstrable. The question of whether it is an “illness” is not science. Yes, it is. In fact, by admitting that it’s demonstrable that there is a condition of un-health, you’ve already admitted that the definition of “illness” is objective and perfectly scientific. You can’t have it both ways. > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Nor would we care if it was an “illness” or a “forthmagoa”; we would treat it. If the word for “illness” was “forthmagoa”, then we’d treat a “forthmagoa”. The very fact that you believe it merits _treatment_ means that its’ an _illness._ > [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Try reading what I said for comprehension next time. And here I thought you were talking about how you preferred a civil discussion of the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/264 "2009-07-28T19:37:27Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Oh, that’s total crap. The fact that I’m suffering a myocardial infarct is demonstrable. The question of whether it is an “illness” is not science. Nor would we care if it was an “illness” or a “forthmagoa”; we would treat it. Try reading what I said for comprehension next time. Objectively, an “illness” is something that requires “treatment”. This determination is partly based on the subjective impressions of the patient and partly based on objective measures on the part of the practitioner: hence the terms “signs” and “symptoms”. Signs and symptoms are diagnostic “tools” which help the assessor determine the condition of the patient. The On-Line Medical Dictionary defines them as: “Objective evidence of disease perceptible to the examining physician (sign) and subjective evidence of disease perceived by the patient (symptom.)” In layman’s terms, “signs” are those “things” that we can see, and “symptoms” are those “things” that the patient tells us. For example: Pain would be a symptom (you can’t see it, but the patient can tell you that he/she has pain). In the case of mental illnesses, some people are saying that the subjective experience of being mentally ill with schizophernia is not “bad”, but rather “good” in some ways: that is, that the _symptoms_ are not those that these particular people associate with disease. However, such a person may not be the best judge of their case. They may, for example, believe that they are having brilliant insights when everyone else believes they are shouting gibberish. This is one potential way in which mental illness differs from most other forms - in most other cases, the sick person is under no illusions that they are well (and to be fair, most mentally ill people aren’t, either). Hence one must evaluate these symptoms together with the signs of disease, culled from years of medical experience of similar cases. That’s where the “science” comes in - it is the tool a clinican uses to evaluate the signs and symptoms. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/265 "2009-07-28T20:18:55Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Oh, that’s total crap. The fact that I’m suffering a myocardial infarct is demonstrable. According to what? Numbers on a lab printout? Squiggles on an EKG? The feeling that an elephant is sitting on your chest? The attending physician’s knowledge and experience compiled from hundreds or thousands of cases like yours? And none of this reflects evidence-based criteria for an illness? Do you just not like the word “illness”, and would prefer “condition” or “demonstrable thingy”? Or is it that (as is the case with many uninformed people) mental illness is not a real illness in your view, thus science doesn’t come into it? While you’re looking into the basic definitions that **Malthus** posted, try researching “evidence-based medicine” as well. It’ll be a revelation. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/266 "2009-07-28T20:25:14Z")
I know autohorntootation isn’t always the best thing, but I think I in post [187](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11384297&postcount=187) discussed the idea of how scientists relate to definitions in a relevant way, and I think folks are largely ignoring these salient points. ---
**Author:** ![Other\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Other\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Other_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/267 "2009-07-28T20:37:00Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > This is an internet message board. It _is_ the people. Noted. Though as you may recall I suggested they wanted said people to be replaced, or for them to change their way of operating (mentally, or within the boards?) to better suit Kimmy and Smashy’s preferred discussions. But I’m only speculating…if they truly thought this I wouldn’t be backing them, so you know. > [@FinnAgain](#): > > Sure, and when anybody starts doing that you’d have a point. The fact is that I’ve objected to Kimmy and Smashy’s smarmy, obnoxious, stupid, condescending pretentious idiocy. Did you, perhaps, not catch the OP? Or Kimmy’s defense of it? Apologies, I meant for that last question to be directed at everyone in general, including Kimmy and Smashy. I have read every post in this thread, yes. And while I understand that you are merely retaliating with the same level of maturity as they, I nevertheless still see the words _stupid, obnoxious, and pretentious idiocy_ as insults. Point and point. ~S.P.I.~ P.S.: Refer to DSYoungEsq for more coherency… ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/268 "2009-07-28T20:39:58Z")
> [@Other\_Dreams](#): > > Noted. Though as you may recall I suggested they wanted said people to be replaced, or for them to change their way of operating (mentally, or within the boards?) to better suit Kimmy and Smashy’s preferred discussions. But I’m only speculating…if they truly thought this I wouldn’t be backing them, so you know. Isn’t the very notion of ‘fighting ignorance’, an attempt to change people and their perceptions? ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/269 "2009-07-28T20:41:30Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I know autohorntootation isn’t always the best thing, but I think I in post [187](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11384297&postcount=187) discussed the idea of how scientists relate to definitions in a relevant way, and I think folks are largely ignoring these salient points. May I have that word, please? That’s right, autohorntootation. Part of me wants to snuggle up against it, and another part of me wants to beat it to death with a stick. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Other\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Other\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Other_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/270 "2009-07-28T20:54:07Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Isn’t the very notion of ‘fighting ignorance’, an attempt to change people and their perceptions? No, I think it is more about the sharing of knowledge previously unknown to others. It isn’t a quest to support anyone person’s particular perception, but to encourage others to read up on various venues of thought. If then you feel you’re in need of a perception change, that is all you. It could also be argued that yes, yes it is - just a very specific one. Again, it was speculation on my part as to the motivations of Kimmy and Smashy in participating in a board so many people believe they “hate”. If only Kimmy and Smashy were here to explain what it is they are doing here. Oh well. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/271 "2009-07-28T21:36:03Z")
OK, dorkness, I looked back at your post. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > **Kimmy** , your comparisons are profoundly stupid. I agree with this sentence. > [@](#): > > Calling homosexuality an illness is dumb because people who experience it generally don’t seem to mind the condition itself. Now maybe. But what about 50 years ago? When gays routinely went into “treatment” because many (most?) of them also thought of it as an illness. Just like everyone else back then. Was it an illness 50 years ago or 100 years ago, but not now? > [@](#): > > Calling schizophrenia an illness isn’t dumb because people who experience it generally dislike the condition itself. Except that in psychosis the person in question often (usually?) doesn’t think they’re sick. So if we just look at THAT subset, I tend to think they’re \*even \*sicker - not less sick - precisely because they don’t think they’re sick at all. What’s worse? The person who has a stroke who knows they’re sick because can’t use the left side of their body, or the person who has a stroke who thinks they’re just fine because not only are they paralyzed, but they’ve forgotten the “idea” of left altogether? > [@](#): > > It’s not political; it’s definitional. “Disease” has a pretty obvious etymology. If a condition generally puts those who experiences it at dis-ease, it’s a disease. (If you dispute this point, please try not to do so in a sophomoric, “Well, isn’t failing freshman English a disease, then, huh, smart guy?” manner). I don’t think most serious people would argue that the definition of disease is that simple. And the ramifications of how you define disease \*are \*always political. You do, actually have to keep that in mind. I think Kimmy and Smash are stupid because they’re applying that concept totally selectively. You can’t just apply it to schizophrenia, or homosexuality, or deafness. If you’re in that mode (which is legitimate) where you’re skeptical of the very concept of disease, you have to apply it to everything, not just the things that bother you. You can’t just say, basically: “schizophrenia’s not a disease because I don’t really believe in the concept of disease. But other things are diseases, obviously.” > [@](#): > > And science can discuss definitions, if obliquely, in two ways. First, we may observe how words are used. The way the word “disease” is used by native English speakers, it overwhelmingly applies to influenza, Ebola, and schizophrenia. The way it’s used, it overwhelmingly doesn’t apply to homosexuality or masculinity. Second, scientists properly define their terms in all discussions, and “disease” is a term with a definition. By most definitions used by most scientists, “disease” applies to the condition of schizophrenia. I think it’s simpler than that. A scientist can say “this is my definition of disease.” Then they can say “condition X fulfills/does not fulfill the criteria I put forth for a disease.” The question of whether their definition “good” is not a scientific question, that’s true. But they don’t have to argue that point - all they have to do is be clear about what definition they are using and be consistent in applying it. > [@](#): > > There are people who try to define diseases into or out of existence for political purposes, but the descriptions of malaria, mental retardation, schizophrenia, or hydrocephalus as disease states are not politically motivated. Motivation isn’t really an issue either. That defining something as a disease has political ramifications is more relevant. I have no doubt that the psychiatrists in the first half of the 20th Century who were arguing so vociferously for pathologizing homosexuality genuinely believed it was a pathology. > [@](#): > > Second, equating a schizophrenic who kills her baby with a man who commits a crime is idiotic. She killed her baby **because of the condition of schizophrenia**. Unless a huge percentage of men commit their crimes because of their gender, you lack a point. You have to be more clear on what you mean by “because of”. I mean if a man committed a crime that he wouldn’t have if he were a woman (say if the testosterone weren’t there or whatever the hell it is that explains the gender disparity in crimes) - how can you say that gender is \*not \*the cause? Or you could turn it around with schizophrenia - even if she would not have murdered her baby without the schizophrenia, it couldn’t have been the sole reason for the murder. Otherwise all schizophrenics would be murderers. You could just as well say that the religious influence was the cause of a vulnerable schizophrenic committing infanticide who might have otherwise been perfectly harmless. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/272 "2009-07-28T21:38:50Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > May I have that word, please? That’s right, autohorntootation. > > Part of me wants to snuggle up against it, and another part of me wants to beat it to death with a stick. 😃 Hell, I’m a descriptivist. Snuggle it, beat it to death with a stick, whatever you want. I make up awesome words (not to autohorntootate). ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/273 "2009-07-28T22:29:39Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > According to what? Numbers on a lab printout? Squiggles on an EKG? The feeling that an elephant is sitting on your chest? The attending physician’s knowledge and experience compiled from hundreds or thousands of cases like yours? And none of this reflects evidence-based criteria for an illness? > > Do you just not like the word “illness”, and would prefer “condition” or “demonstrable thingy”? > > Or is it that (as is the case with many uninformed people) mental illness is not a real illness in your view, thus science doesn’t come into it? > > While you’re looking into the basic definitions that **Malthus** posted, try researching “evidence-based medicine” as well. > > It’ll be a revelation. 🙂 It’s not the ability to diagnose the condition. It is the authority to command what is to be done about it. Nobody is saying that there isn’t a complex of symptoms that have certain predictable features and whose presence can be detected by a trained practitioner. The question is: Is schizophrenia, taken on its own and apart from social prejudices surrounding the diagnosis and the symptoms, necessarily an impairment? Or can some schizophrenics, in society that seeks to tolerate the differences schizophrenia cause, function without much intervention. Is it possible that some schizophrenics get something positive out of their condition? Does the schizophrenic ever get to override the doctor? These challenges are just par for the course in the sociology of medicine. The example of homosexuality recurs because it was criminalized and medicalized for so long. And the change did not come from any scientific discoveries (and it certainly wasn’t because it was only in 1973 that we finally realized that homos “don’t mind their condition,” as was suggested above), it was a political or a social change. It was the recognition that not every deviation from the mean needs to be considered a problem with a medical or psychological solution. Still today physicians and society face when we deal with people who choose not to comply with medical directives. The religious person who refuses a blood transfusion; the smoker who thinks the present enjoyment is worth a foreshortened life. You may disagree with the values that lead people to make these choices, but it seems clear than a mere M.D. does not license you to ignore them. I’m surprised you even resist this idea as much as you do. The only way I can explain is that two themes in this thread have been conflated (1) there are other modes of knowledge acquisition beyond physical perception and scientific investigation, and (2) the limits of science do not allow us to make value judgments about bodily or mental conditions. The first was brought up with respect to the possible value of the schizophrenic’s insights. The second means that though medical science can tell us what smoking will do, it can answer the question “Is it better to be happy and smoke and die sooner, or not?” I think somewhere along the way people got in it in their heads that an argument that the could be a intuitive mode of medicine (although, don’t kid yourself, EBM is a newcomer to the scene, what do you think medical practitioners were doing _before_ the EBM fad – what else _could_ they have been doing). Nobody is arguing that materialist model is not essential to medical science, only that medicine, and materialism, have limitations that ought to be acknowledged. ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/274 "2009-07-28T22:53:28Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > It’s not the ability to diagnose the condition. It is the authority to command what is to be done about it. Oh you want to argue against doctors forcing treatment on their patients. Why didn’t you say so? I don’t think anybody here wants to take the other side, but maybe we can dig up somebody for you so you can battle it out. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/275 "2009-07-28T23:11:03Z")
> [@uglybeech](#): > > Oh you want to argue against doctors forcing treatment on their patients. Why didn’t you say so? I don’t think anybody here wants to take the other side, but maybe we can dig up somebody for you so you can battle it out. Really? How many psych ward inmates do you think are there voluntarily? Have you ever heard of what we call in my home state of Florida the Baker Act? Moreover, this isn’t merely a case of saying that schizophrenics get to choose whether they submit to treatment–a liberty I again note that is not often afforded, your pat assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. It is about reconsidering the very idea of problematizing schizophrenia-without-more. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/276 "2009-07-28T23:20:36Z")
I for one am amused by **StS** ’s view that > [@Where did David Icke get this idea about Reptilians?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-did-david-icke-get-this-idea-about-reptilians/504163/4): > > Schizophrenia is not really a mental illness. Most anthropologists agree that the prophets, fakirs, saints, and shamans of times past were schizophrenic, and there is a large body of research about this fascinating condition. For example, it’s been found that schizophrenics who are allowed to listen to their “voices” without interference tend to be much higher functioning than those whose “voices” are suppressed through drugs or therapy. This suggests that schizophrenics have a traditional role to perform in human culture, and that it has become a problem only because we have robbed schizophrenics of their jobs. Combined with his politics, I can’t help but be reminded of the [SPK](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Patients%27_Collective) > [@](#): > > The Socialist Patients’ Collective (in German the Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv) also known as the SPK and the Patients’ Front (in German Patientenfront), or PF, was a leftist German patients’ group of the late 1960s/early 1970s fighting against medicine and doctors as enemies of the “patients’ class”, seeing capitalism as the reason for illness and trying to see “illness as a weapon” against capitalist society. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/277 "2009-07-28T23:27:58Z")
We go from this: [QUOTE=Kimmy\_Gibbler] The claim “schizerophrenia is a mental illness” is not a scientific assertion. You cannot prove scientific what is and is not an illness. [/quote] to this: > [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > It’s not the ability to diagnose the condition. It is the authority to command what is to be done about it. to this admission: > [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Nobody is saying that there isn’t a complex of symptoms that have certain predictable features and whose presence can be detected by a trained practitioner. O.K., good to get that out of the way. > [@](#): > > The question is: Is schizophrenia, taken on its own and apart from social prejudices surrounding the diagnosis and the symptoms, necessarily an impairment? Or can some schizophrenics, in society that seeks to tolerate the differences schizophrenia cause, function without much intervention. Yes, there are a lot of people with lesser degrees of mental illness who function independently, with the aid and blessing of caregivers. > [@](#): > > Is it possible that some schizophrenics get something positive out of their condition? As I mentioned earlier, there are cases where the “cure” is felt by the patient to be worse than the disease. This does not mean that they are happy to be schizophrenic, but that in their view the effects of medication are not worth the decrease or absence in schizophrenic thought. The comparison with homosexuals has been beaten to death. In that instance bad science was overcome. No evidence has been presented to show that schizophrenia, notably in its full-blown form is not a severe and debilitating illness. There is also today a great deal of respect and tolerance for beliefs and lifestyles that reject optimal medical treatment. Your example of blood transfusion is one in which alternatives are used to come up with the best results possible. Where the line is (sometimes uncertainly) drawn is with children, where parents in the grip of religious or other ideologies make decisions that threaten the lives of their kids, who don’t have a real choice in the matter. > [@](#): > > Nobody is arguing that materialist model is not essential to medical science, only that medicine, and materialism, have limitations that ought to be acknowledged. Uh-oh, here we go wandering back into the spirit world. If you have evidence that schizophrenia is beneficial, other than your own prejudices, bring it on. Otherwise, both medical science and a great weight of experience counter to your own will continue to overwhelm your arguments. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/278 "2009-07-29T01:29:24Z")
Havent’ read the whole thing, so forgive me if this was already pointed out (probably was) But in terms of leaving schizophrenics to decide for themselves whether they are ill or not, or comparisons to homosexuality, etc… when schizophrenia stops being identified as a fundamental cause of murder (no, of course not always, not even usually - but I don’t think that anyone has ever been driven to kill because they themselves were homosexual, for instance.) then we can discuss the possibility of leaving schizophrenics to their schizophrenia. After all, if you’re in this thread, you’ve seen the front page of the Pit. The most alarming thread topic currently there concerns the heinous acts of a woman diagnosed as schizophrenic. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/279 "2009-07-29T01:30:32Z")
Also…is the OP a scientologist, by any chance? Certain attitudes have the general aroma of Scientology. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2009, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298/280 "2009-07-29T01:50:08Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > We go from this:to this:to this admission:O.K., good to get that out of the way.Yes, there are a lot of people with lesser degrees of mental illness who function independently, with the aid and blessing of caregivers.As I mentioned earlier, there are cases where the “cure” is felt by the patient to be worse than the disease. This does not mean that they are happy to be schizophrenic, but that in their view the effects of medication are not worth the decrease or absence in schizophrenic thought. > The comparison with homosexuals has been beaten to death. In that instance bad science was overcome. No evidence has been presented to show that schizophrenia, notably in its full-blown form is not a severe and debilitating illness. > There is also today a great deal of respect and tolerance for beliefs and lifestyles that reject optimal medical treatment. Your example of blood transfusion is one in which alternatives are used to come up with the best results possible. Where the line is (sometimes uncertainly) drawn is with children, where parents in the grip of religious or other ideologies make decisions that threaten the lives of their kids, who don’t have a real choice in the matter.Uh-oh, here we go wandering back into the spirit world. > > If you have evidence that schizophrenia is beneficial, other than your own prejudices, bring it on. Otherwise, both medical science and a great weight of experience counter to your own will continue to overwhelm your arguments. This is a good post. A very good one. Read it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-of-you-know-what-science-is/504298.md?page=15)