Homosexuality was considered a disorder by the DSM until 1973, which is what I was alluding to with my comment. And like most actions in psychology and psychiatry there was no scientific logic behind the decision to add it, or to remove it. It was simply proposed as a motion to the board of the American Psychiatry Association, and passed. Of course I'm not suggesting homosexuality is a disorder, but rather that their entire process of determining what is or is not a disorder has a very tenuous connection with science.
And this perhaps generalizes to these fields in general. The entire fields of psychology and psychiatry are currently in crisis in that their studies and research in general is now, more often than not, deeply flawed. I'm sure you aware of this [4] study which showed some 61% of major psychological studies published in reputable journals did not yield the results claimed when replicated. Follow up results from different researchers have corroborated this issue. One of the responses from the psychologists and psychiatrists involved in the unreproducible studies was to complain that they didn't use the nearly identical samples - for instance using students in e.g. Germany instead of students in New York. However that is a rather direct acknowledgement that these studies do not generalize in any way. But if they don't, then these fields are in no way producing science, let alone actionable science.
A very related issue here is the medicating of people. A recent study indicated that some 17% [1] of Americans are consuming psychiatric drugs. That number nearly doubled in a decade, yet the science on these drugs is very questionable. In recent trials upwards of 80% of SSRI's effects were explained by placebo alone. [2] That number should be doubly surprising as the side effects of SSRIs are, by contrast, very real and tend to undermine double blind studies. And the longterm effects are looking quite dire as well. This is all made more problematic by a pharmaceutical industry that sponsors research more aimed at them making money than on improving healthfulness of people. Emphasizing this is the fact that more than 50% [3] of preclinical medical trials also have results that were later found to be unreproducible.
And this perhaps generalizes to these fields in general. The entire fields of psychology and psychiatry are currently in crisis in that their studies and research in general is now, more often than not, deeply flawed. I'm sure you aware of this [4] study which showed some 61% of major psychological studies published in reputable journals did not yield the results claimed when replicated. Follow up results from different researchers have corroborated this issue. One of the responses from the psychologists and psychiatrists involved in the unreproducible studies was to complain that they didn't use the nearly identical samples - for instance using students in e.g. Germany instead of students in New York. However that is a rather direct acknowledgement that these studies do not generalize in any way. But if they don't, then these fields are in no way producing science, let alone actionable science.
A very related issue here is the medicating of people. A recent study indicated that some 17% [1] of Americans are consuming psychiatric drugs. That number nearly doubled in a decade, yet the science on these drugs is very questionable. In recent trials upwards of 80% of SSRI's effects were explained by placebo alone. [2] That number should be doubly surprising as the side effects of SSRIs are, by contrast, very real and tend to undermine double blind studies. And the longterm effects are looking quite dire as well. This is all made more problematic by a pharmaceutical industry that sponsors research more aimed at them making money than on improving healthfulness of people. Emphasizing this is the fact that more than 50% [3] of preclinical medical trials also have results that were later found to be unreproducible.
[1] - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...
[2] - http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...
[3] - http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour...
[4] - https://www.nature.com/news/first-results-from-psychology-s-...