Sunday 29 July 2012

Where Politics Trumps Scientific Truth

The APA's and the Pedophilia Controversy

"Psychiatric Association Reverses Pedophile Diagnostic Change, Returns to Original Criteria

"APA said that no matter what the research showed either way about the psychological effects of pedophile relationships--pedophilia remained, in its opinion, "morally" wrong.

Moral Philosophy and the Pedophilia Problem

Morally wrong? This was an odd statement indeed from a scientific organization. What, then, was the APA's moral position on, say...adultery or abortion? What about sexually open relationships? Would APA have an official position on polygamy? The very fact that APA admitted to holding a moral viewpoint on a psychological issue ought to have opened up a broad new challenge to psychology's authority and its moral presumptions as our culture's new secular priesthood.

Indeed, the time would was then ripe for moral philosophers to issue a fruitful challenge to the entire concept of psychological health--its inherent limitations, its value-laden nature, and its utter meaningless without dependence on an underlying social-moral philosophy.

The Psychological Association must have been aware of the implications of its statement about the immorality of pedophilia, because the March 2002 issue of the American Psychologist carried an official article stating that what the association had learned from the Rind fiasco was--among other lessons--that 1) APA must build bridges to conservative groups, and 2) in the future, psychology must be prepared to defend its validity as a science."

http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles/NicolosiPedophilia.php
http://narth.com/docs/pedcrisis.html

The Pedophilia Debate Continues -- And DSM Is Changed Again

http://www.narth.com/docs/debatecontinues.html

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