Psychiatrists devise 'depravity rating' to help courts

[T_i_B]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/20/wevil20.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/02/20/ixportal.html

A "depravity rating" that measures evil and will help courts decide whether convicted murderers should face execution or just imprisonment has been drawn up by American psychiatrists.

For decades, doctors shunned the use of the word "evil" on the grounds that it crossed the line between clinical and moral judgment. Now, however, two studies of the criminal personality have concluded that "evil" should be used to describe the most vicious criminals – and that it can be measured.

In the first study, Dr Michael Stone, professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, examined the biographies of more than 500 killers in New York's Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Centre and developed a 22-level "gradations of evil" list.

"After years of study, we have learned to recognise the traits of these people: what they do and why they do it," he said. "It is time to give them the proper appellation – evil."

[cornermouse]

1. I think I would like a little background on the people who

are behind the two studies. I suspect this is another instance of combined trojan horses and predetermined political objectives.

[LiberalFighter]

41. Are they the same type that do shock treatments and lobotomies?

[Jackpine Radical]

2. I haven't seen the underlying studies, but my first reaction is

HORSESHIT!

Typical psychiatric mumbo-jumbo with no scientific base. Those guys are always purporting to invent measurement instruments with no knowledge of psychometric theory. A large number of psychiatrists always seem available to crawl onto whatever fascist bandwagon is passing by. Now they're purporting to know who should be put to death. Wow, put THAT in your "Hypocritic" Oath & smoke it.

Of course, maybe I'm biased. I'm a psychologist. A psychologist who has, by the way, done psych evaluations of maybe 1500 or 2000 criminal offenders.

[truthisfreedom]

3. would you suggest

that this is a bushco move?

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Wouldn't surprise me.

I wouldn't SUGGEST it, though. Probably get myself listed as paranoid and dangerous. :bounce:

[truthisfreedom]

6. you might want to ask around and find out what your

fellow psychologists think about this.

it seems like the administration is pushing forward the idea of shortcuts as a way of life (and death). brings a lot of freakazoids out of the woodwork. some of these ideas would have had interesting labels a few years ago.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Last time I was at a gathering of psychologists,

the conversation indicated that about 80% of them were liberals, with a few RW wackos thrown into the mix.

[KittyWampus]

13. Isn't The Dualism Inherent In Evil/Good Antithetical To Holistic Modality?

I mean if the whole purpose of healing is bringing a person back to wholeness... then diagnosing someone in terms of evil/good seems to be contradictory and even countra-indicated.

The very word heal comes from whole.

Dualism and divisiveness is useful in mechanistic applications but not so much in matters of the mind, heart or spirit.

This development hints at the Materialism that Science seems to be obsessed with.

[puddycat]

36. Psychology is as dangerous as religion, no matter what ideological bent

Psychology is not science. I have said this before, and I as yet have not heard from one single person taking me up on my offer to prove that it is. I've put my car on the line, my house, etc. No one can give me any proof that the DSM-IV is anything more than a political document.

Remember, once homosexuality was considered as a mental illness in the DSM. Its political. The DSM is whatever the powers-to-be want it to be to control people in our culture.

So, whether liberal, independent, or conservative or the extremes it is still a pseudo-science, dangerously maniuplating our culture, as bad if not worse than the myth of religion. Afterall, religion does have its rewards, but what are the rewards of psychology?

[Jackpine Radical]

53. First, you're confusing psychology with psychiatry.

The DSM is a monster created by the psychiatrtic establishment.

Second, I have no particular desire to engage in the old debate about whether psychology is a science. I don't really care what you think. I do doubt, however, that you're familiar with the history of experimental psychology. There certainly have been some replicable experiments, some theories have been falsified, etc. Unfortunately, the desire to be seen as a a "Science" has led many psychologists to take some rather stupid positions, e.g. J.B. Watson, B.F. Skinner. Personally, I'm happy to think of psychology as part biology, part philosophy, part empirical science, part mysticism, and quite entertaining all in all. At least it has been for me for the last 40+ years.

[HuckleB]

54. Indeed.

And,yes, the DSM has serious problems. But this reflects more upon the lack of understanding of the brain and how biology and chemistry and genetics mingle with the environment. It's a part of medicine that lags in time compared to many other areas. That doesn't mean the search for knowledge is somehow unwarranted or "like religion."

[Jackpine Radical]

56. I think you can argue that the DSM wasn't based on the best

science even at the time of its creation.

The axial structure actually makes no sense, and it particularly makes no sense to refer to the two categories as "axes." The concept of an axis is a very specific one in mathematics, and psychology had long used the term in its mathematical sense, most notably in factor analytical models of psychological constructs such as intelligence & personality. The psychiatrists, apparently totally ignorant of this eighty-year-old tradition, came up with a really dumb dichotomization of "psychiatric disorders" that they labelled "Axis I" & "Axis II." With their system, they end up implicitly saying, for example that schizophrenia is more like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) than PTSD is like Borderline Personality Disorder, even though almost all BPDs have underlying PTSDs.

The only way you can make sense of the psychiatric "axis" system is to note the fact that most Axis I disorders are at least marginally treatable with psychoactive medications, while most Axis II disorders are not. As a consequence, psychiatrists are always under some degree of pressure to diagnose an Axis I disorder so they can prescribe a med.

[HuckleB]

57. To some extent, sure.

The problem is that it can't be updated fast enough, to keep up with the pace of the science around, and that it's difficult to intertwine the latest knowledge, depending on how much has been replicated yet. There is much to criticize with the DSM. However, few critics have offered much in the way of alternatives, and the alternative proposals I've seen aren't much better. Knowing that, I find a lot of the criticism of the DSM to be quite wanting.

[chomskysright]

58. it was the psychiatrists NOT psychologists that did this....

plus, psychiatrists are not trained to create 'psychological instruments'; what do you bet there is no good validity and reliability?

[ashmanonar]

43. would "insane" and "lunatic" and "partisan politics" have

been some of those labels?

:evilgrin:

[rodeodance]

5. well, scucks, I look at the WH and I can measure evil--no problem!!

[Solar]

8. That depends

that this is a bushco move?

That depends on if there is an axis involved.

[LiberalFighter]

40. I hope dipshit has enough of the critierias to be labeled as executable

[DELUSIONAL]

11. As I read the article -- what background do psychiatrists have

in psychometric theory.

I've researched this area years ago a part of my degree in Psychology -- and came to the conclusion that the vast majority of shrinks aren't trained in Psychology and how tests are constructed and validated.

There is a scientific approach to research that most Psychology students are taught -- and we have to conduct real research -- using scientific principals and methods and then write a research paper citing numerous published research. We also have to have a good foundation in Statistics. I was surprised to learn that most M.D.s who later specialize in psychiatry don't have to go through this sort of training. Many MDs and Veterinarians have never taken a course in Statistics!!

So Psychologists have the research methodology and psychological theory -- which is very often the untested and unproven theory of the MD shrinks.

Any good defense lawyer will be able to dismember any shrink that tries to define someone as "evil" on a subjective "test". Which will piss the religious right now in power -- and they will try to get the lawyers tossed in jail. Humm . . . I wonder if the lawyers realize they are under attack by the bushie administration -- except for the lawyers who work for the right wing and have sold their soul to the devil.

[Selteri]

17. When taking psychology in college

I have to agree with your assessment, though I happen to think that far too many psychologists don't have any idea what they are talking about.

This opinion formed when I noticed how it followed politically correct tendencies with the 'science' changing in just 5 short years from taking the same class due to a credit transfer issue. Science can't be politically correct, it is derived by consistencies. Just as gravity does not change just because it isn't politically expedient to our space exploration budget neither does the archetecture of the human mind. Like physics though, we are still youthful and inexperienced in many ways.

I hope that we can avoid letting psychologists take the place of the Spanish inquisition for the same level of control over people's lives for how they are defined by an ill fitting pseudoscience based upon scientific precepts. We have enough of those kinds of people, those people who claim to be able to prove creationism scientifically, I call them morons. They use a little science and a lot of falicious ideas from science that has been long disproven to argue for something without basis too.

There are consistencies in psychology, that much of it can't change because they can be proven time and again, thus making scientific proofs. There is more for us left to learn and understand though.

[Jackpine Radical]

20. Psychiatrists are not qualified even to administer an IQ test,

nor to interpret an MMPI, let alone having any understanding of the measurement principles that underlie either instrument.

[HuckleB]

These are poor psychiatrists.

Please. Let's not let this devolve into the age-old battle between psychologists and psychiatrists.

[LiberalFighter]

42. Should devise a depravity test for the religious right

[chomskysright]

59. psychiatrists have NO experience in this....

[bemildred]

12. Superstitious crap.

Witch doctors in white coats.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

21. Heh. Glad I read your post because my expletive would have proved

redundant.

While I'm no psychologist (but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night), the "evil" descriptor for just about anything with a basis in reality is a cop out that panders more to the emotions of the feeble minded than to the recipient of the label.

[tlcandie]

7. Correction from a recent article regarding same...

Looking up doctors...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60E12F9355F0C7B8CDDAB0894DD404482
<snip>
Correction: February 10, 2005, Thursday

An article in Science Times on Tuesday about new attention among psychiatrists and forensic examiners to the concept of evil misattributed the development of a scale that rates criminal acts by their depravity. It is the work of Dr. Michael Welner, an associate professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine; it was not developed by a group there.
<snip>

[tlcandie]

9. Here he is ..

Appears to be very long..
http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/forensics/welner/


Forensic Panel he set up ..
http://www.forensicpanel.com/expertise/index.htm



http://www.depravityscale.org/

Survey above at depravityscale site if you are interested. Also, many other articles linked at this site!

[Ian David]

14. The Science of Good and Evil

The Science of Good and Evil
Why People Cheat, Gossip, Share, Care,
and Follow the Golden Rule


By Michael Shermer
Publisher, Skeptic magazine, Contributing Editor/Monthly Columnist, Scientific American; Author, Why People Believe Weird Things, How We Believe, Denying History, The Borderlands of Science, In Darwin 's Shadow, Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience

In The Science of Good and Evil , the third volume in his trilogy on the power of belief (the first two volumes were Why People Believe Weird Things and How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God ), psychologist and historian of science Dr. Michael Shermer tackles two of the deepest and most challenging problems of our age: (1) The origins of morality and (2) the foundations of ethics. Embedded within these two problems are questions that have occupied the greatest minds in history: Is it in our nature to be moral or immoral? If we evolved by natural forces then what was the natural purpose of morality? If we live in a determined universe, then how can we make free moral choices? Does evil exist, and if so, what is the nature of evil? Why do bad things happen to good people? Is there justice in the world beyond the social order? If there is no outside source to validate moral principles, does anything go? Can we be good without God?

In this stunning conclusion to an intellectual journey into the mind and soul of humanity, Dr. Shermer peels back the inner layers covering our core being to reveal a complexity of human motives—selfish and selfless, cooperative and competitive, virtue and vice, good and evil, moral and immoral. Shermer shows how these motives came into being as a product of both our evolutionary heritage and cultural history, and how we can construct an ethical system that generates a morality that is neither dogmatically absolute nor irrationally relative—a provisional morality for an age of science that provides empirical evidence and a rational basis for belief.

Broad in scope, deep in its analysis, and controversial to its core, The Science of Good and Evil applies the latest findings of science to offer an original model of the bio-cultural evolution of morality and a new theory of provisional ethics that challenges the reader to confront these timeless issues from a new perspective—one that suggests that both morality and immorality evolved in human biological and cultural evolution, that we can make free moral choices in a determined universe, that moral principles can have a sound rational basis supported by empirical evidence (without being dogmatically absolutist or dependent on an external source of validation), and that we can be good without God. Shermer calls for a national debate on the origins of morality, the basis of moral principles, and the need for a more universal and tolerant ethic; an ethic that will insure the well-being and survival of all members of the species, and of all species.

More:
http://www.skeptic.com/b200hb.html

[Just Me]

16. Sounds like an interesting read.

I first became interested in how/why people engage in evil acts when I read a series of books written by an author whose name escapes me at the moment. I do remember the last book I read entitled, "People of the Lie" and hoped that the bases underlying deprave (evil) acts would become an aspect of thorough study. Of course, I am always mindful of the potential for abuse of studies concerning "evil" (kinda' an evil use of evil).

I would be very interested in how evidence-backed models of human-induced acts of evil would be applied to individuals like the neoCONs whose actions lead to mass murder.

[Selteri]

15. Welcome to recreation camp, Berlin Texas.

While staying here for your mental political deviency you'll be treated to the best we have to offer in food (bread and water), recreational activities (slave labor) and the best mental relaxation (brainshing) techniques to help you back on the road to becomming a productive citizen of America.

You will turn yourself in... err report to your local recruited with your devient thought patterns to be evaluated so we can help you be a healthy happy human. Or else!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Not that far away from taking art down for being devient to rounding up dissenters in camps, especially with a legitimate seeming science to back it up.

[NJmaverick]

18. I have to say I read the article and the concept makes sense

If you are going to have a death penalty, you need some sort of mechanism to try and ensure it is applied in a uniform manner. This sort of system would minimize the emotional aspects of the crime and look at it in a more rational and logical manner.

[Jackpine Radical]

19. But why have a death penalty?

There is no evidence that the death penalty has any useful function in society, and some evidence to the contrary.

[NJmaverick]

22. That's a good question, but we do have one

So if we have, I would like to see an impartial scale like this used, rather then just emotion and personal biases.

[HuckleB]

28. Sorry, but these "studies" are a piss poor excuse for science.

These "studies" are incredibly similar to "studies" used to justify Eugenics back in the "good old days."

:eyes:

This is incredibly alarming. Of course, in the end, such "studies" may be one way to show the illogic and inhumanity of the death penalty. The more death penalty proponents spin and churn out ever-more bizarre defenses and "mechanisms" to "improve" the practice, the more the practice is seen as simply unworkable and unjustified.

[NashVegas]

34. But Allowing Psychs to Set Themselves Up as Moral Arbiters Is Not

Having a "depravity" scale that goes by accepted mores isn't doing anything much different from what's going on now. But it should only be a measure of depravity, an ethical value and not purport to gauge evil, a moral value, for reasons already noted in this thread.

[Mabel Dodge]

23. I'm the first to say it.........

"After years of study, we have learned to recognise the traits of these people: what they do and why they do it," he said. "It is time to give them the proper appellation – evil"

Mr. Boosh, seems like you're in a whole heap of trouble boy.

[HuckleB]

24. This is simply another form of Eugenics.

This type of crap sends psychiatry back in time. Just what we need. Every day we learn more about the brain and its interactions with the body and how the two affect behavior, but now there's a crew that wants to go fundie with a bunch of moralizing nonsense.

[steve2470]

25. I have not read the article, but I can tell you immediately that

using the word evil automatically places this study into the realm of religion, ethics, philosophy and (maybe) spirituality. Antisocial personality disorder is the closest the DSM-IV-TR comes to using that word, but studiously avoids it, thank God. Maybe the shrinks can come up with "premorbid serial killer personality disorder" as an acceptable replacement that may have some scientific validity.

[ismnotwasm]

30. I agree

Evil is a useful descriptive word, I Suppose. But it has no business is psychiatry. It's the word primitive people used to describe epilepsy, for pity's sake, you know the possessed by demons folks.

[htuttle]

26. This is crazy -- why don't we just throw them in the water...

...and see if they float? It's a lot quicker and just as scientific as any study of 'evil'.

[HuckleB]

29. LOL! Exactly.

This "research" differs little from that, so why not?

:shrug:

[Rex]

27. Who gets to decide what is "evil" and what is "good"?

:evilgrin: Judge Ashcroft?

[shadowknows69]

31. evil is kind of a subjective thing isn't it?

[Karenina]

33. Dark, black evil!

[DU GrovelBot]

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[VegasWolf]

35. Here is EVIL

Skeleton Greed Preachers

[shadowknows69]

48. OK that is pretty evil n/t

[dansolo]

37. Probably as a counter to insanity pleas

It sound to me like they are trying to get rid of insanity pleas. If they can characterize a person's actions as "evil", there is less likelyhood that a jury will give a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. They want people in jails, not psych wards.

[Gyre]

38. I think it's great!

Just another objective tool for the courts to use when making life and death decisions. Who would have a problem with that?

Gyre

[HuckleB]

39. I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not, but...

in case you're not, please define "objective" for us.

Thank you.

[ashmanonar]

44. it sure looks like gyre's being VERY facetious.

if not, then i'm a poor judge of people.

[shadowknows69]

49. It just seems too "religious" a word to me.

how long until we just start categorizing all crime by levels of evil and suddenly bouncing a check will get you life in prison because lying and stealing are two of the top ten evils(going by the new law's standard of the ten commandments of course)

[Baclava]

45. I see nothing but naked ladies...

Does that make me depraved?



(OK - I lied...I also see Mothman...)

[shadowknows69]

50. I know a good mothman porn site you can go to.

just kidding but there's probably one out there. :evilgrin: EVIL!!!!

[sarcasmo]

46. Will they have a depravity rating for TV now as well.

[applegrove]

47. I cannot wait till they turn on those MRI and run the ******* monsters

through the bloody thing. Enough horros caused by such a small percentage of the population. This decade has been the decade of the 'brain'. I cannot wait to see what the second 'decade of the brain' leaves us with!!

[daleo]

51. Here's how you measure evil - tried and true.

Dunk your suspect in a tank of water (tie their hands first, of course). If they remain submerged they are not evil. If they float to surface, they are evil and must be killed (burning at the stake is the recommended course of action). This worked well for hundreds of years, so we don't need no new-fangled "measures of gradations of evil". These "scientists of evil" need to study up on their medieval theories of justice and psychology a little more thoroughly.

When the U.S. military does it in Iraq, it is called "water boarding". Its nice to know that everything old is new again.

[Rose Siding]

52. I saw Goody Ashcroft dancin' with the devil!

In my own personal journey to the position of anti-death penalty, one of the points I pondered was that society could best benefit itself by studying extreme cases of criminality. Killing them cost us the opportunity to learn- the hope of prevention. -Ironic that psuedo science will be used to accelerate executions.

[leesa]

55. Increasing their efficiency in court, eh? We have the new mental health

test coming out soon with the new ratings attached.

What level of evil are you?

[chomskysright]

60. the forensice psychologists can rip it to bits...

it was a psychiatrist, an MD, who developed it, and he is not trained to do this.

[chomskysright]

61. I passed it to the forensic psychologists....