When science is conducted in secret by monks it isn’t science

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When science is conducted in secret by monks it isn’t science

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 | Science |

But my main concern is the secrecy of the DSM-V–only a group of psychiatrists and one psychologist are allowed to oversee the revision and they have been asked to sign confidentiality agreements. Psychologists are up in arms about being excluded from the process but a more pressing concern is that a small group of psychiatrists is making decisions about what is normal vs. abnormal behavior.

Shouldn’t there be more oversight than this? Why the need to be so secret about what is being put in this manual? Why not have a more diverse group of mental health experts and others involved? I remember when we talked with APA past president Nicholas Cummings about how diagnoses were chosen for the DSM–apparently some are just reached by consensus. Huh, no research, just a decision based on a group of potentially PC or biased individuals without the research to back it up? What kind of science is that? I am started to think Szasz has a point.

This was the issue with the Catholic church. They kept secret texts. They conducted affairs in Latin to keep their affairs inaccessible to the laity. They believed that only the clergy could communicate with God.

The ideal is for the scientific process to be conducted in the open, but some parts are cloistered, conducted in secret. The most egregious example is researchers not sharing their original data, even when that data is the basis of a published paper and was collected using taxpayer grant money.

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