Can anyone recall a hypothesis that had been supported by a significant subset of the lay population, consistently rejected by the scientific elites, and turned out to be correct?
It seems belief in creationism has this structure. the lower you go in education level, the more common the belief. I wonder whether this alone can be used as evidence against this ‘theory’ and others like it.
My impression was that the idea that schizophrenia runs in families was dismissed as an old wives’ tale, but a fast google search isn’t turning up anything along those lines, though it does seem that some Freudians believed schizophenia was a mental rather than physical disorder.
My understanding is that historically, schizophrenia has been presumed to have a partly genetic cause since around 1910, out of which grew an intermittent research program of family and twin studies to probe schizophrenia genetics. An opposing camp that emphasized environmental effects emerged in the wake of the Nazi eugenics program and the realization that complex psychological traits needn’t follow trivial Mendelian patterns of inheritance. Both research traditions continue to the present day.
Edit to add—Franz Josef Kallman, whose bibliography in schizophrenia genetics I somewhat glibly linked to in the grandparent comment, is one of the scientists who was most firmly in the genetic camp. His work (so far as I know) dominated the study of schizophrenia’s causes between the World Wars, and for some time afterwards.
seem that some Freudians believed schizophenia was a mental rather than physical disorder
The last point in the abstract at cupholder’s link seems strikingly defensive to me:
8. The genetic theory of schizophrenia does not invalidate any psychological theories of a descriptive or analytical nature. It is equally compatible with the psychiatric concept that schizophrenia can be prevented as well as cured.
Wow. Scientific elites were that silly? How on earth could they expect there not to be a hereditary component? Even exposure to the environmental factors that contribute is going to be affected by the genetic influence on personality. Stress in particular springs to mind.
Elites in general (scientific or otherwise) seem to have a significant built-in bias against genetic explanations (which is usually what is meant by hereditary).
I’ve seen a lot of speculation as to why this is so, ranging from it being a noble lie justified by supporting democracy or the status quo, to justifying meritocratic systems (despite their aristocratic results), to supporting bigger government (if society’s woes are due to environmental factors, then empower the government to forcibly change the environment and create the new Soviet Man!), to simply long-standing instinctive revulsion and disgust stemming from historical discrimination employing genetic rhetoric (eugenics, Nazis, slavery, etc.) and so on.
Possibly this bias is over-determined by multiple factors.
I know Argumentum ad populum does not work, and I know Arguments from authority do not work, but perhaps they can be combined into something more potent:
Can anyone recall a hypothesis that had been supported by a significant subset of the lay population, consistently rejected by the scientific elites, and turned out to be correct?
It seems belief in creationism has this structure. the lower you go in education level, the more common the belief. I wonder whether this alone can be used as evidence against this ‘theory’ and others like it.
That there’s a hereditary component to schizophrenia.
?+schizophrenia)
My impression was that the idea that schizophrenia runs in families was dismissed as an old wives’ tale, but a fast google search isn’t turning up anything along those lines, though it does seem that some Freudians believed schizophenia was a mental rather than physical disorder.
My understanding is that historically, schizophrenia has been presumed to have a partly genetic cause since around 1910, out of which grew an intermittent research program of family and twin studies to probe schizophrenia genetics. An opposing camp that emphasized environmental effects emerged in the wake of the Nazi eugenics program and the realization that complex psychological traits needn’t follow trivial Mendelian patterns of inheritance. Both research traditions continue to the present day.
Edit to add—Franz Josef Kallman, whose bibliography in schizophrenia genetics I somewhat glibly linked to in the grandparent comment, is one of the scientists who was most firmly in the genetic camp. His work (so far as I know) dominated the study of schizophrenia’s causes between the World Wars, and for some time afterwards.
Thanks. You clearly know more about this than I do. I just had a vague impression.
The last point in the abstract at cupholder’s link seems strikingly defensive to me:
Now I’m trying to work out what weird sexual thing involving one’s mother could possibly be construed to cause schizophrenia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Genetic
“A family history of schizophrenia is the most significant risk factor (Table 12).3”
Wow. Scientific elites were that silly? How on earth could they expect there not to be a hereditary component? Even exposure to the environmental factors that contribute is going to be affected by the genetic influence on personality. Stress in particular springs to mind.
Elites in general (scientific or otherwise) seem to have a significant built-in bias against genetic explanations (which is usually what is meant by hereditary).
I’ve seen a lot of speculation as to why this is so, ranging from it being a noble lie justified by supporting democracy or the status quo, to justifying meritocratic systems (despite their aristocratic results), to supporting bigger government (if society’s woes are due to environmental factors, then empower the government to forcibly change the environment and create the new Soviet Man!), to simply long-standing instinctive revulsion and disgust stemming from historical discrimination employing genetic rhetoric (eugenics, Nazis, slavery, etc.) and so on.
Possibly this bias is over-determined by multiple factors.