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ciphergoth comments on Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong
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What would you do to assess the advisability of taking antidepressants?
I'm trying to advise someone who is receiving conflicting advice; there appears to be plenty of controversy in this area and many factors confound assessing the evidence. Before I point to specifics on evidence that might influence the decision one way or the other I thought I'd ask in the most general way I can. I hope using the Open Thread to play "ask a rationalist" like this isn't a bad thing!
Here's why I turn to Less Wrong in more detail.
On the one hand, the anti-psychiatry movement and critics of biological psychiatry seem to suffer from really serious problems with thinking straight: they criticize reductionism, they seem to like philosophers like Foucault, and when they try to say that mental illness doesn't exist they seem to go for the "applause lights" of blaming society over the vivid reality of mental illness.
But on the other hand, there seem to be really serious problems with the science of studying mental illness: a tendency to look where it's easiest to look rather than where the strongest effects are leading to over-emphasis on easily, cleanly detectable factors, massive distortion through the powerful financial incentives of the pharmaceutical industry including ghost-writing papers for scientists and a bad case of the file-drawer effect, and a century-long history of just making shit up.
It's incredibly daunting to be faced with the task of cutting through this thicket to make a potentially life-changing decision.