XPost: alt.flame.fucking.faggots, alt.politics.homosexuality, al   
   .politics.homosexuality   
   XPost: alt.psychology   
   From: usenet@larseighner.com   
      
   In our last episode,   
   ,   
   the lovely and talented dank   
   broadcast on alt.politics.homosexuality:   
      
   > RamRod Sword of Baal wrote...   
   >>   
   >> "Altan Loker (real name)"  wrote in message   
   >> news:3bc69a82-a8d4-4fdf-989f-55fb0e0ea872@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...   
   >>   
   >>> Homosexuality used to be considered a mental disorder, a personality   
   >>> disorder. The Editors of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of   
   >>> Mental Disorders (DSM) got together and discussed for several hours   
   >>> the nature of homosexuality. They decided that it was not a mental   
   >>> disorder but just a sexual preference.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> It was the American Psychiatric Association who decided in their wisdom   
   >> that homosexuality was not a mental disorder, let us get that correct   
   >> and you disagree with them, so it is you against the majority of all   
   >> those learned Doctors in the the APA..............................   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> I think that says it all.   
      
   > But prior to that time the majority of all the learned "doctors" in the   
   > APA agreed that it was a mental disorder.  Either psychiatry was wrong   
   > before or it is wrong now, but it was wrong about something.   
      
   And at one time nearly every physicist believed there was a luminous   
   ether, but today you cannot find a half-dozen who think so.  That's how   
   science works: better information is discovered, the science changes.   
      
   The APA didn't just one day decide to hold a vote on how members felt about   
   homosexuality that day.  The vote came after an extensive review of new   
   information.   
      
   > Now the same psychiatry goes around telling us to ignore what it said   
   > before but to accept what it says now without question (if we question it   
   > we are diagnosed as mentally defective and given shock treatment to cure   
   > our attitude).   
      
   Name three people who have got shock treatments for questioning the APA   
   position on homosexuality.   
      
   Too hard?  Okay, name just one.   
      
   You are a liar, aren't you.   
      
   > Also be careful about using the term "doctor" to describe psychologists,   
      
   No one has mentioned psychologists except you.  We were discussing the   
   American Psychiatric Association.  As it happens, the American Psychological   
   Association concurs.   
      
   > because their title refers to a doctorate in PHILOSOPHY and not medical   
   > science.   
      
   Most American institutions award Ph.D.s in all of the hard sciences:   
   physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology.  Sc.D.s are rare in American   
   institutions and when they are awarded it is often in technology or   
   engineer, not hard science.  Names of degrees have been handed down from   
   medieval times --- you don't really think on single males get "bachelor's"   
   degrees, do you?   
      
      
   > A psychiatrist is a medical doctor, but his specialty is the   
   > philosophical field of psychology.   
      
   The scientific field of psychology.  But most psychiatrists have M.D.s   
   and do not have a Ph.D.   
      
   > The medical doctor's Ph.D. could be in fashion design, but that doesn't   
   > make the wardrobe makeover he gives you medical or scientific in any way,   
   > even if it does make you feel better.   
      
   > I love analogies so I'll keep going with fashion.  Several decades ago   
   > the majority of fashion experts agreed that wearing white shoes after   
   > Labor Day was cosmetically defective and it was defined as a fashion   
   > disorder and sufferers subjected to public humiliation and even arrest   
   > in Southern states.  Today almost everyone wears white shoes at some   
   > point after Labor Day and not only doesn't anyone think it's abnormal,   
   > anyone who trips out on the white shoe rule is perceived as suffering   
   > from an OCD mental disorder and humiliated on the Dr. Phil show.  Of   
   > course it doesn't really matter because fashion doesn't purport to be   
   > scientific, and today's fashion trends don't mean previous fashion   
   > trends were "wrong."   
      
   Immaterial, since psychology is a science and the APA vote followed on an   
   extensive review of scientific evidence.   
      
   --   
   Lars Eighner  usenet@larseighner.com   
                            Countdown: 371 days to go.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)