Erik Moeller wrote:
There's
also an odd strong pro-science-establishment
bias, as evidence by the fact that most of our psychology articles are
basically the (controversial) "party line" from American Psychiatry
Association's _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual_.
Established mainstream scientists whose views are favored by the majority
are given more space than minority views. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPOV#Pseudoscience
That is completely irrelevant to my comment. The American Psychiatry
Association represents a particular faction within psychology, with a
particularly extremist viewpoint that there is no such thing as mental
illness, but only physical illness, and all mental illnesses are
actually "brain diseases" that they will begrudgingly call "mental
disorders" for historical reasons, with the understanding that they are
wholly the result of physiological medical conditions. This is perhaps
unsurprising, given that psychiatrists are MDs.
As you might expect, this view is not universally held within
psychology; indeed, the majority of PhDs in the field are members of the
rival American Psychological Association, which holds rather contrary
viewpoints.
So Wikipedia siding with MDs over PhDs has nothing to do with mainstream
vs. pseudoscience, but with one faction of science vs. another faction
of science.
Furthermore, it's inherently POV to favor "mainstream scientists".
Mainstream scientists who also have mainstream public acceptance,
perhaps, but simply giving experts in a field undue credence, even if
their viewpoints are not generally held, is taking an explicit position
on the matter. I'm quite alright with statements appropriately
attributed, of course, like "the latest APA conference said [blah],
although this remains controversial." But if you take a look at
[[schizophrenia]], [[bipolar disorder]], etc., it's just straight
pro-psychiatry partisanship.
-Mark