Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Cesar Tort and Ombudsman vs others/Evidence

message: Evidence Page is about behavior assertions.  However, this case has increasingly become about content.  I have stated somewhere else that I was Wiki-burnout about accusations.  But now that the well is not poisoned (I hope), I’d like to comment once more about content.  
Besides what the DSM psychiatric manual really says , some of the most relevant content issues about Biological psychiatry article have been discussed here .  And the genetic/environment discussion, for example, continued in user and talk pages , Talk:Pit of despair and also in .  
But now Anarchist42, a newcomer to the debate, has introduced the most important subject of all: involuntary treatment by psychiatrists.  Involuntary treatment explains why thousands of psychiatric users around the world have organized forums such as MindFreedom International.  Besides being independent from religious affiliations, MindFreedom has been recognized by the United Nations.  According to Anarchist42 involuntary treatment by biopsychiatrists “suggests that their methods and theories warrant a more critical perspective than the other medical fields (i.e. more than just a paragraph or two in psychiatric articles)” .  —Cesar Tort 02:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Response Involuntary treatment issues are political and social issues which are unrelated to the nature of the research, hypotheses, treatment modalities, credibility, or value of biopsychiatry.  Other than piling on with more irrelevant political bashing, neither Anarchist42's comments nor these by Cesar Tort add anything relevant to the discussion.  I'm am curious as to why every argument regarding political, social, or economic concerns is believed to carry some weight as a scientific argument and have yet to hear any reason (other than personal hostility to conventional medicine or purely political grandstanding) as to why they should appear at all in the article on biopsych.  There is an entire article devoted to anti-psychiatry where opponents to what they believe is conventional psychiatry can contribute at length and even though it is completely biased in view it has not been tagged by those who recognize the value of conventional medicine.  There is no need for every anti-medicine, anti-science, anti-vaccination, anti-psychiatry, anti-evolution activist to have a loud voice in every article in WP.  There isn't any need to jump the couch on this article, which is what is happening.  Ande B. 03:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You keep saying that involuntary treatment is "relevant" and to the extent that it has political relevance, I agree.  So do millions of others, which is why, in every jurisdiciton with which I am familiar, involuntary treatment is subject to statutory and other types of regulation.  But that has nothing to do with the scientific hypotheses that are being pursued nor does it have anything to do with the efficacy, or lack thereof, of any medical treatment.  Even though it may well be that for some patients a "social" or personal insight and coping strategies could be most helpful, that does not invalidate anything about biopsych.  I don't see where you get the idea of me or anyone else "Blaming the victim".  Denying medication to a victim and insisting that all difficulties be solved without such assistance would be blaming and burdening the victim to me.  You appear to be entirely blinded by your own zealotry and have failed to make any scientifically or medically valid point in your argument by assertion.  Ande B. 20:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How efficient is a medical treatment if all it does in reality is make a person easier to deal with by others, rather than actually solve any real problems? Again, you assert that there is no causal link, the causal link is obvious. The system doesn't work. As long as it sticks its head in the sand over its own inadequacies, it won't solve the problem. "Blaming the victim" no, of course you miss that. But if a patiient say for instance with a nervous social anxiety type disorder is treated with drugs, then what we have done is place the burden of the problem on probably a victim of societies
dysfunction. I'm A sociologist and a Psychologist, and I have a clear
mind for how we should deal with "mental health" as a sociology problem, and how we are blaming the victim when we medicate people instead of change society as per the obvious. As far as being blinded by zealotry, I'll call that a convenient projection and an ad hominem, but I'll spare you the WP:PAIN report, since I'm sure your denial has made you delusional. My argument by assertion seems to be working fine, they say projection and cognitive disonance happen in argument when the person doesn't have a valid argument and subliminally knows it.
Prometheuspan 20:42, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: You are making assertions, not providing any evidence that shows that more than a minority of the scientific / medical establishment agrees with your criticisms to the extent you seem to be claiming.  You say you have a "clear mind as to how we should deal with mental health."  Apparently your "clear mind" isn't in agreement with the majority of medical practitioners.  I don't care if you are a sociologist or a psychologist or anything else.  What I am responding to is your utter lack of evidence showing that your view is anything other than a minority view.  You do not seem to be able to do that.  Instead, you seem to want to use WP as a forum to "correct" what you see as an established but erroneous medical model.  Perhaps this is not exactly what you want to get across, but this is the message you are giving. For some reason you seem to want to be able to attack the objectivity and ethics of anyone who disagrees with you but don't respond happily when the focus is on your own biases.  I wonder why that is.  Ande B. 20:56, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 
"more than a minority of the scientific / medical establishment"
Why would i do that? I know that I have a minority opinion, the only question is what level of due weight that minority opinion should recieve. Trying to bait me into making a straw man for you? sorry.
"Correct...established but erroneous" Again you falsely attribute my position to only myself, when in fact and as you should know many scientists share this minority opinion. You can read anything you want into what i write, your interpretation isn't what I am interested in. So far, I have yet to discuss you except in response to you discussing me. I don't mind discussing my own biases in propper time and place, and, if you are seeking disclosure, I have more than provided it. I haven't attacked your objectivity or your ethics, I have simply stated the facts as they are. Me and millions of other people know that the Pharma industry has serious problems.
You are the one taking this personally, you are the one involving your own ego, so any attack you subjectivize is entirely delusional.
Prometheuspan 21:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: *I'm not trying to bait you or anyone else.  I'm trying to make sense of your comments in terms of whatever argument you are trying to make.  It appears that we are both aware that you share a minority opinion with others.  Your minority opinion may even be more constructive than the majority opinion.  My opinion may reflect your own more than what might be referred to as the "establishment" view.  Nonetheless, until you can articulate an argument that contains anything other than the promotion of a viewpoint, the best anyone can do is try to piece your statements into some sort of patchwork.  I have tried to explain that you or your comments "appear" to say, indicate, or promote ceratin ideas; I tried to not claim that this is what you actually do believe.  But your comments require massive amounts of interpretation.  That being the case, both you and Cesar Tort need to provide a clear statement of your disputes regarding POV and bias in the article, not a continued attack on the majority medical and scientific view of biopsychiatry.  That has not happened yet and, as a consquence, you both claim that your positions have been misinterpreted or misconstrued.  You will continued to be misunderstood or ignored until you can phrase your concerns outside of the advocacy mode. Ande B. 21:34, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Since i have knowledge of of formal logic, this noise is useless.
I have framed my argument in perfectly legal and perfectly sane 
terms, you are only and yet again changing the topic into a veiled
ad hominem. You are very skilled at misconstrueing things, but you
don't have the power to keep other people from seeing the obvious.
As long as you have a cognitive dissonance and refuse to face reality, your inability to see or understand is really not my problem. To reiterate; Pharma drugs has serious problems. Those problems are not merely the fictional imaginations of me and cesar
working over time, they are based in fact and there is a large body of evidence even in teh scholarly community to support our position.
You are simply ignoring the arguments and making me and cesar the subject. In a variety of different ways. I don't have any problem
admitting to a factual minority opinion, or in advocating that that minority opinion be given a fair voice under its due weight. Your arguments do not in general lead one to believe that you understand the reality or the severity of the problem, or the factuality of the evidence or even the number of people involved in the minority view.
Prometheuspan 21:53, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I'm actually not making a veiled ad hominem.  I am expressing frustration with your "arguments."  I have not changed the topic, I have attempted to explain why my responses are as they are: they reflect the "arguments" and "evidence" that have been presented on these pages. And those arguments have consistently failed to address the underlying dispute that brought this matter to the Arb pages.  You may well have had classes in logic and argument, but I do not see any evidence of that in what has been presented here because the arguments do not address the underlying editing dispute, they continually address other things, just as Cesar Tort has constantly argued about issues that are not relevant to the "editing" dispute.  Arguing about whether one psychiatric treatment model is better than another or that the biopsych model is "flawed" is not what the editorial dispute is about.  It is about endless tagging as a means to push POV by a person(s) who will never be satisfied with the article until it becomes one that gives preference to a competing model.  That is simply not a defensible editing position. The dispute is about editing issues, arguing the merits of one model vs another is not what the article is about, nor is it WP policy as I understand it (though I could very easily misunderstand WP policies.) Ande B. 22:26, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know about the total history and can't comment on that.
My assumption is, the last thing you really want to do is send me in to go look at talk pages. I think that you are unfairly characterizing cesars position and tactics, and i would hope that the
reality is that the problem here is not what you say or seem to feel,
but that the dispute wasn't resolved earlier because of the polarization which both sides apparently participated in. It is appropriate for wikipedia to give fair time to this minority view,
and I don't see a respect for that in your arguments. Its important that medicine be given its propper respect, and the worst failure I see is your defensiveness in that. Honestly, I think all sides of this debate are suffering because of the vagueness of handling issues of due weight. Thats a wikipedia systemic problem, and if i were the whole lot of you, I'd be haranguing Jimbo over running the place so loosely. The real question is not whether or not the minority opinion should be given a voice, but how large that voice should be compared to other voices. Apparently Cesar thinks that the
voice being allowed him is too small, and apparently you disagree. Nowhere on Wikipedia is there a qauntitative rule to follow. If we go by the idea that neutrality delivers a document in which the reader can discern no apparent bias one way or the other, then the article is clearly not that. Then again, this voice got in with a due weight freedom pass under the npov neutrality policy, and giving
the minority opinion equal time would seem unfair. Then there is the problem of pov forking, and when and if there are good grounds to pov fork, which i think there are in this case. If I was an arbiter,
I'd instruct Him to leave no more than links to his own articles and
a paragraph of basic info in the mainline articles, and instruct him to part out his arguments to several articles, and prolly get a name change as "anti" is predjudicial. As I am not an arbiter, All i can do is look at the arguments in front of me and use logic to determine
their validity. The arguments you are using are polarizing, disrespectful, and whether intended or not, cross the line into ad hominems as defined in formal logic.  25 percent seems like a fair number.Prometheuspan 23:17, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't know that anyone has the time or patience to go through the article talk page in its choronological squence.  Be that as it may, my perception is that on several occassions it appeared that Cesar had made explicit agreements to refrain from continuing certain arguments on these pages and to simply let the Arbitrators reach a decision.  
No: my deal with Rockpocket was merely not engage anymore in mutual accusations. —Cesar Tort 23:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: But then he would make another appearance and not let the matters rest.  For a while, this page and Arb was fairly quiet, awaiting an official decision.  Then Cesar posted an entire page of specious arguments and explications for no apparent reason.  I can't for the life of me determine what he thought he would accomplish other than to create hostility.  
I was merely concerned by a negative vote in Proposed decision : that’s why I felt compelled to better present my case. —Cesar Tort 00:05, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I had previously supported Cesar in this matter!  But his chronic failure to abide by agreements he made with others (not with me) and his odd posting that included a direct personal attack on me and others while I was attempting to help him avoid POV and editing disputes on other articles has caused me to realize that what others had told me about Cesar's supposed "good faith" errors was spot on and that I had, indeed, "assumed good faith" when there was none to be had.  Am I blaming Cesar, well it looks like I am insofar as it relates to my entirely recent hostility to him, his cause, and his claims of victimhood.  I have, on numerous occassions, indicated that a full critique of each of the problematic methods and medications be examined in the articles that specific deal with those treatments.  But a full critique of every failing of each medication or therapy or anything else is not warranted on the BioPsych page because the Biopsych page is, for the most part, an umbrella article that directs people to other articles about diagnoses and treatments.  I agree that the rather amorphous standards for determining coverage of "criticism" within articles can lead to problems.  But in this instance, given a history that involves Ombudsman, an apparently problematic editor who seems happy to instigate people to cause as many difficulties as possible, there is little chance that the anti-psych crowd will be willing to accept what most neutral others would agree is "sufficient" criticism.  
I will comply with ArbCom decision without further complaints. —Cesar Tort 00:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I still cannot understand why there is an ongoing effort at posting more and more commentary that could best be described as either an attack on BioPsych as it is currently practiced or information that supports an alternative to biopsych.  That substance is not what this supposedly about.  I have responded to those posts primarily because that is all that has been presented by Cesar and those who seem to be supporting his position.  But, as far as I'm concerned, none of those anti- or pro- comments are relevant to the underlying editorial dispute about relentless tagging as a means of forcing a POV. Ande B. 23:51, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: *And Fred Bauder made a suggestion that is in direct contradiciton of WP editing policy.  Furthermore, there is already that amount or more given over to criticism in the article.  Unless you are re-defining  "25%". Ande B. 22:44, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  For the record, "anti-science" and "anti-evolution" are often involuntary too. Religious indoctrination leaves many youngsters little opportunity to learn about science. There are educational establishments where "anti-evolution" is taught as fact. Anti-evolutionists use many of the same psuedoscience, agendist arguments anti-psychiatrists do. The point is, political and ideological cases can be made against any discipline you choose, making exceptions of one is illogical. Lack of evidence does not make a discipline invalid (or else the astrobiology article wouldn't exist) Rockpocket 01:42, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The only people defending "pet paradigms" in this instance are those such as yourself who want to promote their own activist views to WP readers and administrators.  No one is defending the biopsychiatry "paradigm."  We (or at least I) are only saying that the article, as currently written, contains adequate criticism to warrant the removal of neutrality dispute tags and to prevent certain editors from using tags as a means of advocating a POV.  If you've got a dispute with the involuntary medical practices or overmedication in your jurisdiction, take it to the proper regulatory, review, and enforcement entities.  But leave your activism out of the WP pages. Ande B. 21:06, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If that is all you are saying, then having looked at the psychiatry article, all i can say is that it does appear that due weight purposes to the minority opinion has been given. However,
it depends on how many other articles we look around at, and I'm
sure i could find pro-system bias on wikipedia. To accuse me of activism is the height of ludicrousness. I was having a conversation
on a talk page, and somebody noticed some points relevant to this discussion. I followed up some invitations, and I looked at your arguments. If you are not defending the paradigm, then we can admit
together that the paradigm has problems. I don't really care one way
or the other, this is a side job for me, an exploration for further sampling into wikipedia process. What i found was bad logic, a silly
argument, and a page of amusing sparring. If the question is solved that in fact, there are serious problems with the implementation of the science, then great, implement npov policy as per giving each voice its due. The problem is, people making arguments that are grounded in propaganda tools, and ignorance. As far a neutrality dispute tags, obviously they should not be removed until the dispute is resolved. Maybe you should try admitting that there are problems with pharma drugs, and encouraging a responsible npov exploration, giving time to a minority voice in ratio to its due weight. In other words, this whole conversation is polarized, and you are obviously contributing to its polarization, not to solving the problem. 
Prometheuspan 21:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Prometheuspan, I too got stuck in this tar-baby of a dispute due to an innocent "Recent changes" patrol.  I too had great difficulty in navigating the arguments and parties that I encountered on the talk pages.  I can't imagine wading through the talk pages of the article or  for this dispute will be easy or even productive for anyone.  The tone has been one of frustration all around, which leads to even more misunderstandings.  You may find this difficult to believe, but I have typically been assigned to dealing with the "difficult" people and issues anywhere I have worked.  "Difficult" including those making bomb threats, death threats, and suicide threats.  Those types of situations are relatively simple to deal with effectively compared to trying to communicate with nothing but a typed page and no voice or body gestures to ameliorate what can seem to be a very hostile or bewildering tone.  I don't like these types of disputes because if I have to undertake this type of aggravation, I want to be paid for it.  And paid well!  Still, I believe that you and I are largely on the same page with our concerns about how mental health is conducted, at least in North America.  My concerns in this article have always and exclusively been editorial, not substantive.  Now you may disagree with me about how an article is best structured, but I don't think any of us are gaining anything by engaging in a crazy debate about public health care issues which, I believe, most of us share.  You have said I have contributed to the negative tone here and I can certainly see why you would say that.  I feel the same about your contributions.  You jumped into the middle of an argument that already had quite a history and made arguments similar to those that have been tossed about for a long time. Things had quieted down substantially here and the parties were getting along fine outside of these pages until Cesar Tort decided to post a lengthy page of comments that included assertions that I was an advocate and that advocates were at best questionable as editors.  A rather self-defeating statement for him to make, I thought. I am not one to lie down and be quiet when I have been falsely accused. Cesar later made an effort to retract that comment but, in the mean time, more damage was done. Anyhow, do you have any suggestion as to how we can get off of this chaotic track? I, for one, would like to return to a quieter, more productive life. Ande B. 22:03, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you [Rockpocket, far way above] that fundamentalist parents abuse their children with involuntary, creationist ideas (I myself was abused with involuntary Catholicism as a child).  But isn’t this rather different from a serious, professional critical approach to psychiatry, e.g. that EHPP journal you yourself mentioned in biopsych article?  Lack of evidence doesn’t make a discipline invalid, true; but astrobiology is a voluntary discipline. In other words, beware of involuntary disciplines! —Cesar Tort 02:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why do you insist that involuntary commitment issues undermine scientific research, clinical trial results, and the efficacy of treatment modalities?  This is getting to be a one-note tune that has already been played out. Ande B. 02:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why can't you see basic cause and effect? If we keep using boxes such as adhd and scitzophrenia to toss people into, when any honest expert can tell you that there are dozens or hundreds of different actual disorders and causes to those symtom driven schema,
we create a cycle of systemic bias and systemic projection. That makes research unlikely to happen in useful directions. Treatment modalities based on solving social problems instead of chemicals obviously don't get applied. The problem here is that drugs are being used to anesthetize the dysfunctionality of the system, not to fix peoples problems, but to FIX people as problems of the system.
Prometheuspan 20:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're making a lot of assumptions here and quite honestly I don't know where you come up with them other than your own blind zealotry.  You obviously have some personal bias against the use of medications, that does not mean that your bias is legitimate nor does it mean that those who disagree with your bias engage in the weird thought processes you project onto them.  Ande B. 20:32, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You don't know what you don't know and thats why you don't know where i come up with information that is well grounded in science. I don't have a personal Bias against anything, I have depth
knowledge of Psychology, Sociology, And Political Science. And I have Asperger Syndrome, was misdiagnosed with adhd (I am actually capable of acute focus at "trance" levels.) And my mother was a counseling psychologist that threw her life away to prescription meds. I speak not from the lofty heights of theory and reified schema, but from a life of hard, cold, cruel realities that people like yourself have no clue of and no business even thinking that you
know better than. I appreciate prescription meds for what they can do, and i recomend them in cases where they work and where the benefit outweighs any problems created. Wisely also, i understand
that there are factual problems with TOO MANY PEOPLE being put ON TOO MANY drugs for TOO MANY WRONG REASONS. I understand the factual problems concerned with trying to solve complicated social and psychological problems with chemicals. I understand that the system is in fact victimizing millions of people; I lived through that abuse
in two very real and very distinct ways. To call me biased with no
actual logic to back it up is to heap on more ad hominems. I suggest that you desist from attacking me personally and adress the points that have been made. WP:PAIN was unknown to me because of wikipedias labyrinthine organization the last time people used ad hominems against me, but I am itching to try out the process to see if it works.
The Topic is Pharma drugs. Not Me.
Prometheuspan 20:54, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: *I see that you have had very unhappy experiences and express understandably strong feelings about them.  
--------
What part of don't talk about me personally are you having a hard time with?
------------
You seem to be trying to say something about "experience" and "lofty heights" but I have yet to see anything other than personal anecdote 
----------
Yes, even if i had no knowledge of psychiatry or psychology or sociology or political science, my sheer life experiences make me an expert qualified to say that big pharma is victimizing the public.
---------
and activism. 
------------
Ad hominem.
excluded middle.
------------
 These are not adequate bases for whatever argument you believe you are making. 
--------------
ad hominem
-----------
 Your own statments undermine your claim that you do not have a bias. 
----------
Thats what ethical full disclosure does. I show you my weak spot and see if you bite. Then if you do, I rip your teeth out. Metaphor make any sense of situation now?
----------
To the extent that bias and POV pushing are inappropriate then your strong activism and advocacy are appropriate areas of discussion. 
----------
ad hominems, and boring redundant repitition of theme. You can't jedi mind trick us by repeating mantras.
-----------
 I would very much like to address the points you believe you have made but I cannot decipher them.Ande B. 21:20, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: You seem to have the phrase ad hominem in your vocabulary. 
Unfortunately you are misusing it here.  I am explaining why you are not effective in your attempts at argument, not calling you names or making some sort of personal accusation. 
------------
Yes, and making ME the subject is a form of Ad hominem. If i communicate poorly, then its your job first to answer what has been said and its content, and then and only then, to make comment on me.
You are using ME as a way to evade the actual subject. Which is what you are also doing with Cesar. Quit knocking him personally, and get on with actually solving problems.
*It is not ad hominem if it is true.  You are not presenting arguments that have any relevance as to the underlying editorial dispute.  You jumped into the middle of an argument and seem to have mistook the fundamental editing issue.  Beyond that, you, like Cesar, present political arguments that have no relevancy to the efficacy of treatments, the underlying course of inquiry within biopsychiatry,  or an accurate description of how biopsychiatry is understood by the majority of the medical profession.  I do not avoid arguments, as you may have noticed by now. Ande B. 00:10, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: [Response to another entry far way above:] I just mean we have to be extra careful with such treatments after psychiatry was massively used in Communist countries to subdue rebellious citizens (just as it’s used now to subdue rebellious adolescents in the West). —Cesar Tort 02:43, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that political concern applies equally to nearly any conceivable type of abuse of civil or human rights. It has nothing to do, per se, with biopsychiatry or conventianal medicine.  The nazi doctors perpetrated gross horrors in concentration camps, that does not mean that medecine is a politically suspect activity.  Ande B. 03:07, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OF course medicine is abused and is politically suspect for abuse! What kind of delusional world are we trying to live in here?
What part of corporate America making and selling a product which is overused and potentially harmful don't you understand? You keep framing this in terms of an argument you are having as if we are attacking the medical establishment and as if THAT is the key issue here. Sorry, its not about that, and its not about you and your projection. It is about the simple fact that pharma drugs are seriously overprescribed and that other solutions are not being explored or applied. Quit defending your pet paradigm ans start working with intellectual honesty to fix its problems.
Prometheuspan 20:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Biopsychiatry is mainstream / conventional medicine.  To the extent you attack biopsych, you are, indeed, attacking the medical establishment.  Overprescription of all types of drugs is a social problem.  Overprescription does not, in and of itself, have anything to do with the underlying hypotheses or biopsychiatry nor does it have anything to do with the efficacy of any treatment.  You appear to have not read my statements that I am skeptical of many if not most psychoactive drugs and actually believe that drugs are often over-prescribed as a result of fads rather than sound rationale and that perfectly healthy children are overdiagnosed as having problems that are really nothing more than the abundant energy of childhood.  The fact that solutions other than medication should be explored in no way refutes anything about biopysch.  Where did you learn to discuss these issues? You don't seem to be helping your cause. You are simply appearing to be a more and more biased activist with each additional sentence you enter.  Ande B. 20:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: [response to Ande B above:] Yes, but psychiatry is unique in two senses: (1) it’s the only involuntary medical specialty, and (2) it’s the only medical specialty without proof of the cause or physiology of psychiatric diagnoses. Have you read psychiatrist Loren Mosher’s letter of resignation to the APA in User talk:Cesar Tort/discussion? —Cesar Tort 03:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Your above statement shows the crux of the problem: "we have to be extra careful with such treatments". An encyclopedia article isn't a forum for redressing past wrongs or influencing social policy. You obviously have strong feelings about such things, and there are many venues for such activism, but an encyclopedia isn't the place for that. Joema 15:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In this case, what you miss is exactly your own point in reverse. Since the facts of the case are that there is a serious problem, it is our factual responsibility to report on the facts as they are, not spin them and keep them spun to protect the pharma industry and make allopathic medicine sound good. The reality is pov pushing in this instance is denial of the problem. Wikipedia would be remiss in its duty to fact, and to neutral reporting if it did not report on this problem and give it the due weight that it deserves.
Prometheuspan 20:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: [Response to Joema above:] But even encyclopedias must mention the historical facts about the  Holocaust and the Gulag. —Cesar Tort 16:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're really out of line, here, Cesar.  The Holocaust has nothing to do with this discussion.  Godwin's law says you are finished with this conversation, which you have just to degraded irretrievably. Ande B. 17:36, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  As a metaphor, its a good one. The people involved in the holocaust were convinced they were doing the right thing by means of fallacious groupthink. Similar situation, same number of victims, slightly different social causations. An encyclopedia is not for only the politically expedient facts, nor for the state supported or official version facts. It is for the facts period, and, some might argue, in the face of social problems, it has an extra responsiblity to report fact and provide clarity on complicated issues.
Prometheuspan 20:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: [Response to Ande B about Godwin's law:] I disagree.  I trust you will agree with me that some mental hospitals were snake pits in the First World (we still have them in the Third World). Are you familiar with Albert Deutsch’s book The Shame of the States? In the 1930s there were many public US psychiatric hospitals which rivaled the European concentration camps.  Deutsch wrote that in such “buildings swarming with naked humans herder like cattle [...] I saw hundreds of patients living under leaking roofs”. The psychiatric facilities were infested with rats, cockroaches and other vermin.  Some hospitals housed more than 4000 people and inpatients died like flies.  All of this ended in the US after the 1946 Life exposé.  But we still have quite a few snake pits in Mexico... —Cesar Tort 19:40, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Involuntary treatment 

message: Law #13. Raul's Razor: An article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie. An article is not neutral if, after reading it, you can tell where the author's sympathies lie. 
Law #57. Knucmo2's third law of Wikipedia: Attempts to change POV articles to NPOV invariably result from a different POV.
Using Raul's Razor some readers of the Biological psychiatry article could say that the authors’ sympathies lie with the pharmaceutical industry and orthodox psychiatry.  While it's true, as Ande B has noted, that the original 2005 Biological Psychiatry article was POV (before Midgley and I rewrote it), Fuzzform and Joema's recent change resulted from a different POV (Knucmo2's law). —Cesar Tort 15:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Raul's Law #1 and corollary are the most relevant to this situation: : Much of Wikipedia's content, and all of the day to day functions are overseen by a small core of the most dedicated contributors. These users are the most valuable resource Wikipedia has.  Corollary - Of these highly dedicated users who have left, the vast majority left as a result of trolls, vandals, and/or POV warriors - typically not as a result of any one particular user, but from the combined stress of dealing with many of them. Consequently, such problem users should be viewed as Wikipedia's biggest handicap. (emphasis added) Joema 15:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Raul’s razor and Knucmo2’s third law don’t apply to the article Midgley and I rewrote.  They do apply however to the article you wrote with Fuzzform. —Cesar Tort 16:21, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: First '''content''' assertion

message: All of the above makes me to repeat that this case is based on a content dispute.  As stated at the very top of this talk page, mediation for the Biological Psychiatry article ought to be arranged. —Cesar Tort 15:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that Joema had attempted mediation but was ignored in his attempts.  Based on Cesar Tort's refusal to acknowledge that his own grossly biased viewpoint distorts his comprehension of the editorial process and his own incapability of recognizing that his "content" disputes are based on political or religious prefereneces rather than on legitimate scientific disagreements makes it clear that it is not mediation that Cesar wants but an absolute editorial privilege.  Ande B. 19:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Religious preferences??  I am an atheist!  Indeed, one of my mentors is Paul Kurtz, America’s leading secular humanist today.  That the dispute is based on legitimate scientific disagreements is demonstrated by the fact that the academic credentials of biopsych critics such as Peter Breggin or Elliot Valenstein are pure establishment.  (Re Joema’s attempts, I already stated in Evidence page that at that time I didn’t understand what mediation or arbitration meant.) —Cesar Tort 20:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Let me then rephrase that as ideological preferences as they apply to Cesar Tort.  They are identical, however, to religious positions of some fringe religious groups.  I did not intend to identify you as a religionist, merely as one whose arguments sound like a religion based argument.  (I too am a strong atheist, Cesar.  I hope our editorial dispute demonstrates how atheism is NOT a religious doctrine of any sort!) Ande B. 21:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  OK, Ande, but Breggin’s, Valenstein’s and my objections to biopsych are not identical to the objections in religious or fringe groups.  Our Weltanschauung is wholly different.  I will give you just one example.  Scientologists maintain that World War II, the Bosnia war and even September 11 were caused by psychiatrists.  Nobody I know in the psychiatric survivor movement, or in the critical literature by professionals that I have read, hold such views. —Cesar Tort 22:21, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Well I, for one, would not want to be associated with those crazy assertions.  But we all get lumped in with those others who espouse similar political positions.  That's why it's important to carefully differentiate between editorial versus political concerns in articles.  Talk to you tomorrow. 22:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Fourth '''content''' assertion

message: ===First assertion===
Clearly the venomous bile, which has been splattered across these pages of late, is of the same invidious calibre that had earlier seeped from between the lines of the Biopsych talk page to attack Cesar tort. 
 
Such previous spiteful incident having occurred after the POV tagging issue in Biopsych talk page, had died down, and as soon as Cesar Tort had begun to quote authoritative sources to back up his assertions in accordance with NPOV objectives.
It then appeared that Joema and AndeB ganged up on poor Cesar, due to their combined inability to formulate cogent responses to the incisive points that Cesar Tort was raising!Solo999 03:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be under the mistaken assumption that this is the place for submitting evidence to RfAR. Its not. If you wish your comments to be taken on board, you should write them here in the prescribed format, with diffs to the evidence backing up your assertions. If you just with to comment on the debate, then you have found the right place. However, actual content or constructive justification for your tagging actions would be more useful than personal attacks. Rockpocket 17:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had planned to avoid responding to Solo's post but it may be helpful for people to note where he made his first post and the hearty welcome he received by Ombudsman on his user page when he  first signed onto WP.  In light of Solo's posting behavior, I think the Ombudsman connection says all that needs to be said about his credility and agenda.  Ande B. 02:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Spectacular work, Solo999, in managing to issue an apology for comparing editors to the Gestapo while, simultaneously, reaffirming the analogy . And to do it on an ArbCom evidence page also. I would urge you to read WP:NPA very carefully and then consider quite what you have contributed to the entire Biopsych discussion other than NPOV tagging justified with personal attacks. Is there one specific, informative, contructive edit you have made to article namespace? It appears not. Rockpocket 05:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose we could simply stop feeding the troll and let him starve. Ande B. 07:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Evidence by [[User:Solo999|Solo999]]

message: Clearly the venomous bile, which has been splattered across these pages of late, is of the same invidious calibre that had earlier seeped from between the lines of the Biopsych talk page to attack Cesar tort. 
 
Such previous spiteful incident having occurred after the POV tagging issue in Biopsych talk page, had died down, and as soon as Cesar Tort had begun to quote authoritative sources to back up his assertions in accordance with NPOV objectives.
It then appeared that Joema and AndeB ganged up on poor Cesar, due to their combined inability to formulate cogent responses to the incisive points that Cesar Tort was raising!Solo999 03:39, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be under the mistaken assumption that this is the place for submitting evidence to RfAR. Its not. If you wish your comments to be taken on board, you should write them here in the prescribed format, with diffs to the evidence backing up your assertions. If you just with to comment on the debate, then you have found the right place. However, actual content or constructive justification for your tagging actions would be more useful than personal attacks. Rockpocket 17:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I had planned to avoid responding to Solo's post but it may be helpful for people to note where he made his first post and the hearty welcome he received by Ombudsman on his user page when he  first signed onto WP.  In light of Solo's posting behavior, I think the Ombudsman connection says all that needs to be said about his credility and agenda.  Ande B. 02:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Spectacular work, Solo999, in managing to issue an apology for comparing editors to the Gestapo while, simultaneously, reaffirming the analogy . And to do it on an ArbCom evidence page also. I would urge you to read WP:NPA very carefully and then consider quite what you have contributed to the entire Biopsych discussion other than NPOV tagging justified with personal attacks. Is there one specific, informative, contructive edit you have made to article namespace? It appears not. Rockpocket 05:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose we could simply stop feeding the troll and let him starve. Ande B. 07:25, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: First assertion

message: Both User:Pansophia and User:Jgwlaw have become fed up in recent weeks while User:Midgley has ignored repeated cease and desist warnings.  The fact that Midgley has still not been reigned in begs the question of why this should be happening.  Ombudsman 17:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is completely unrelated to this RFAr. Please stick to the issues, Ombudsman. JFW | T@lk 08:52, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ha, ha.  Please, don't be quite so silly about the nature of this RfAr, which can be traced directly to the fact that you were caught red handed aiding and abetting Midgley's scorched earth tactics, which have caused problems on many articles beginning at least as far back as the vaccine critics debacle.  Your complicity therewith is exactly what escalated a simple content dispute, over the utter whitewashing of the biopsych article, into this sprawling example of how Wiki processes can be turned upside down, and into public stocks, via aggressive Wikilawyering.  As so often is the case, you have once again tried to redefine black as white, and up as down.  Nice try.  Ombudsman 17:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I was caught red-handed? Now that is what I call calling black white. It is you who has been found to be unreasonable, obsessive and driven by an agenda. Nothing in this RFAr reflects badly on my editing. JFW | T@lk 21:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have to side with JFW on this one, as I wouldn't classify his actions as scorching anything.  Andrew73 22:30, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Ombudsman, beautifully written. I suggest you have it published in a reliable source under your real name, so we can quote it on biological psychiatry in the "criticism" section. JFW | T@lk 21:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Double standard]]

message: Just as the quest for developing a scientific understanding of the biology of mental health and mental illness undoubtedly should make up the bulk of the biopsychiatry article, so too should there be a robust analysis of controversy and context of related medical research and its applications.  In other words, to be intellectually honest, the article must adequately place the subject in perspective, to reflect how biopsychiatry  evolved, and why such research, primarily funded by the pharmaceutical industry, is frequently viewed today as little more than spin doctoring by many of the stakeholder groups involved, not to mention the former editors of at least two leading medical journals and the editors of Scientific American.  Or at least that was anticipated when the article was first drafted.  Indeed, rather than within the article itself, that context has become abundantly clear in this RfAr instead, precisely as a result of a heavy handed campaign by the Wiki's medical lobby to squelch, delete or bowdlerize content that might hint that psychiatric practices are among the major contributors to the tragedy that modern medicine itself has become:  one of the leading causes of illness, injury and death today.
Annually, according to the latest US statistics, 2.2 million Americans are afflicted by in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs, 20 million unnecessary antibiotics prescritions are written for viral infections, 7.5 million unnecessary but often lucrative medical and surgical procedures are performed, 8.9 million people are unnecessarily hospitalized, and 783,936 deaths are caused by conventional medicine, outpacing even heart attacks and cancer.  All this against a backdrop of systematic efforts orchestrated by the medical industry to proactively hunt down and preemptively destroy competing medical paradigms.  Although malnourishment is virtually the only causative factor positively known for triggering mental disorders (aside from the psychotropic drugs prescribed by the truckload by doctors), pharmaceutical company lobbyists continue to besiege lawmakers with urgent requests to enact legislation designed to compound the existing suppression of knowledge related to the well established health benefits of dietary supplements.  Laughably, Midgley has gone so far as to propose a ban on the discussion of matters relevant to this context in which conventional medicine is practiced.
More to the point, the events leading up to this RfAr are proof positive of the caustic consequences of injecting the Wiki with the medical industry's hierarchical and dysfunctional cultural influences.  As an open source project, the Wiki's culture (and overall quality as repository institutional memory) derives its strenghs from having an inherently flat organizational structure, which itself has been stretched thin by rapid growth and natural growing pains.  It is little wonder that the Wiki's realm of medical articles has suffered greatly from the infliction of egregious hazing rituals by representatives of the medical community.  This pattern of behavior became evident at the outset of the content dispute stemming from Jfd's abrasive condemnation of the Whale.to webmaster for his colorful editorial comments at that website.  A warning, about the spectre of the medical industry's monolithic cultural hierarchy puncturing the Wiki's flat but flexible organizational structure, was duly reported in the ensuing RfC perpetrated by Jfd.  Attempts to excuse Jfd's behavior at the time as an artifact of the rigidly dogmatic culture of the medical establishment were similarly condemned as personal attacks by Jfd, whose propensity for expressing conclusions that are mirror opposites to the facts is at times truly stunning.  Ever since then,Jfd has sustained an aggressive stance, despite routinely being wrong on the facts, wrong on the evidence, wrong in aiding and abetting Midgley, and quite wrong in packaging myriad aggressive deletions with an avalanche of complaints.  This relentlessness, manifest as an attempt to seek sanctions in the present labyrinthine proceedings despite being dead wrong once again in helping catalyze the present row, is not at all a healthy way to go about consensus building.  Sharing knowledge by means of an open source project can only become more elusive when primary influences derive from competition, and attempts to control, rather than from collaboration in the quest for sharing knowlege.  While Jfd took the honorable route on one point by admitting the Whale.to RfC skirmish should have been presented as the content dispute that it was, that instance was a rare exception to the rule for Jfd, who has a gift for being able to doggedly argue that black might actually be white.  Jfd's allegiance to the medical community's iron fisted control of health care knowledge is evidently far stronger than his dedication to the Wiki's diametrically opposite knowledge  sharing ideal.
.
Neuroleptics, to a large extent, are increasingly used as a fallback when other coercive methods to ensure compliance with authoritarian or acculturative norms have failed.  Psychotropic drugs, aside from their chemical effects as powerful neurotoxins, do little more in the long run than ensure the serious disruption of normal biological processes, damage the functional capacity to produce and modulate biological compounds essential for mental health, and reap obscene profits for entities engaged in licit drug dealing.  In large part, the disruptions caused by neurotoxic pharmaceuticals throw ph balances completely out of whack, often by increasing alkalinity, which often contributes to problems such as significant weight gain or loss, tardive dyskinesia or other neurological short-circuiting, and even causes lactation in some male victims.  Children who are medicated with psychoactive drugs, primarily boys who mature more slowly than girls, often begin to behave like zombies, experience psychosis, lose weight, or have their growth stunted or at least delayed, often simply because their behavior is not as compliant as their female peers.  
Biological psychiatry did not arise from any great discovery or insight into cognitive function, no, in truth it arose as a backfill to explain how and why neurotoxic dye derivatives worked so well as tranquilizers.  In other words, the cart was put in front of the horse.  That cart, which has been transformed over the last half century into truckloads of psychoactive drugs now being delivered to pharmacies around the globe, portends the dawn of a brave new world, in which children and the elderly, society's most vulnerable populations, and victims of trauma, are seen by drug companies as little more than vast, lucrative markets to be exploited fully.  Elders are routinely doped up at residential care facilities, seemingly to make them easier to manage, and multiple laxatives are often prescribed for similar purposes.  Attending physcians generally are oblivious to the impact on the enteric nervous system and overall neurological function caused by nutritional deficits often compounded by institutional diets and laxatives.  While attempts at polypharmacy crackdowns in nursing homes may actually be putting a dent in the massive amount of drug trafficking that targets seniors, as evidenced by the gathering and posting of statistics designed to keep the number of prescriptions down to ten or less per patient at such facilities, the situation is far more grave for the next generation, whose situation is so bad that some school districts have made it a policy to threaten parents with criminal complaints for refusing to be coerced into medicating their children.  Ombudsman 17:07, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ombudsman, beautifully written. I suggest you have it published in a reliable source under your real name, so we can quote it on biological psychiatry in the "criticism" section. JFW | T@lk 21:24, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Brave New World]]