On Mon, 04 Jul 2016 07:00:11 -0700, Marie Helweg-Larsen wrote:
If you teach your students scientific thinking you might want them
to read this article from today's Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/01/as-a-psychiatrist-i-diagnose-mental-illness-and-sometimes-demonic-possession/?wpisrc=nl_draw2&wpmm=1
A couple of points:
(1) Students might also be interested in reading the following article
that appears, oddly enough, in the U.S. Catholic:
http://www.uscatholic.org/church/2011/05/theyre-baaack-whats-behind-return-exorcist
This article was published back in 2011 but it does make reference
to Richard Gallagher and his "work" but he apparently didn't have a
book to shill at the time. One passage involving Gallagher that I
think is significant is the following:
|Gallagher is careful to note that he does not diagnose demonic
|possession. That's the priest's job. He just rules out medical
|causes for the patient's poor condition.
The key point is that a diagnosis of "demonic possession" is a
default designation because the symptom pattern is not consistent
with existing diagnoses. What other conclusions could be reached?
Consider:
(a) The symptom pattern is based on physical factors (in contrast to
"spiritual" or supernatural factors) but we don't have the required
knowledge to identify what those physical factors are. A number
of "functional disorders" (e.g., chronic fatigue syndrome or CFS) do not
have a clearly identified biological basis, consequently medical
testing for the disorder provides no useful information and a physician
needs to make a diagnosis on the basis of the symptom picture.
However, some physicians don't believe in CFS and consider it
either a psychological disorder (in contrast to a "medical condition")
or, worst case, malingering. Gallagher appears to believe that
if a natural explanation is not presently available, instead of waiting
for one to be developed, he'll settle for a supernatural explanation,
no matter how ridiculous or contrary to known physical laws and
theories.
(b) Gallagher, as a psychotherapist/psychoanalyst -- not as a
researcher trying to test a hypothesis or theory -- operates like
most physicians -- he is using abductive reasoning to come up with
a diagnosis (i.e., an explanation) from a set of potential explanations
(NOTE: the explanations he considers is a subset of the total set
of possible explanations which, obviously, will lead to problems if
the correct explanation is not in the subset). One way to represent
the reasoning scheme used in abductive reasoning or, an alternative
but related form of reasoning known as "inference to best explanation"
(IBE), was first represented by Charles Sanders Peirce in the
following form:
The surprising fact, C, is observed.
But if A were true, C would be a matter of course.
Hence, there is reason to suspect that A is true. (Peirce, 1998, p. 231)
Abduction refers to reasoning backwards from an
event "C" to an explanation "A."
A more modern form promoted by Brian Haig takes the following
form:
P1, P2, . are surprising empirical phenomena.
Theory T explains P1, P2, ..
No other theory can explain P1, P2, . as well as T does.
Therefore T is accepted as the best explanation.
(see my review of Haig's book from which the schemes are from
and which provides references; see:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268687360_Would_Sherlock_Holmes_Have_Been_a_Good_Researcher
The problem with abductive reasoning is that one rarely has the
complete set of T theories to choose from, indeed, one is often
in a situation where has to pick the best explanation from a bunch
of bad explanations (like finding the cleanest dirty shirt in a laundry
hamper).
Psychologists, for the most part, gave up on abductive reasoning
long ago though it can serve as the basis for identifying a potential
theory/explanation to empirically test (some current textbooks are
reviving this role of abductive reasoning) but philosophers and
researchers in AI are working with different forms of abductive
reasoning or IBE as a means of developing a possibly correct
explanation for an event or phenomenon (but without empirically
testing like experimental psychologist typically do).
(3) Because Catholicism and other forms of Christianity provides
a convenient explanatory framework and it is well known by
the culture Gallagher operates within, one has to acknowledge the
operation of the availability heuristic and the confirmation bias.
If he was in another culture that had comparable frameworks
(e.g., Hinduism, Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, etc.), these would
be *defaulted* to as "best" explanations. Again, all Gallagher is
trying to do is come up with a reasonable explanation that would guide
a plan of treatment -- technically, he is not concerned with testing
the explanation. If the subsequent treatment works, the explanation
"works!". If it doesn't, well, who knows? Maybe he's dealing with
really persistent demons.
-Mike Palij
New York University
m...@nyu.edu
Good article for students to dissect - the Amazing Randy would have a
field
day. Here is one quote showing the typical pattern of claiming that no
independent evidence could even be collected.:
"As a man of reason, I've had to rationalize the seemingly irrational.
Questions about how a scientifically trained physician can believe
"such
outdated and unscientific nonsense," as I've been asked, have a simple
answer.
I honestly weigh the evidence. I have been told simplistically that
levitation
defies the laws of gravity, and, well, of course it does! We are not
dealing
here with purely material reality, but with the spiritual realm. One
cannot
force these creatures to undergo lab studies or submit to scientific
manipulation; they will also hardly allow themselves to be easily
recorded by
video equipment, as skeptics sometimes demand."
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