how can people take psychology seriously when gay people used to be labeled as mentally ill?

Question

how can u possibly believe in psych anymore .. ive never heard the medical profession change their mind about an illness...

Answer 1

They've never changed their minds because they think they're never wrong. Psychology is merely based on ideas and opinions and a very, very small amount of evidence. Like 80% of what Freud thought were merely his ideas, the only proof he had was his personal expierence. Psychologists, counslers, therapists base their helping people on what they've been told to do. They don't really know what to do.

Answer 2

Pregnancy used to be treated as an illness as well. We also used to believe that bleeding someone would reduce a fever. Circumcision has it's roots in discouraging masturbation. Do we now not believe physicians because they made mistakes in the past?

What about astronomy? We used to believe in celestial spheres to which all celestial bodies were attached. We believed that the Sun orbited the Earth. Do we disbelieve everything astronomers say now?

Biology had its spontaneous generation. Botany had poison tomatoes. Physics had 4 elements. Chemistry had alchemy. All of these fields had mistakes and making mistakes is part of science.

Answer 3

How can you take medicine seriously when they used to believe that women became hysterical because their uteruses were drying up and moving around their bodies looking for moisture? The science of psychology been around for less than 200 years, it is still evolving and learning. And, just like any other profession in the world they have made mistakes in the past.

Answer 4

Um, the medical profession changes their mind constantly. Its inherent in science. They used to think you had to be gay to get AIDS, too, remember? Oh, and there's that thing about malaria being caused by humid air. And god causing the Black Plague. Did you know japanese doctors used to think our hearts were shaped like artichokes?

I like to think of gay people (people not likely to have their own offspring) as the saviors of our species. The more people we take out of the propogation pool, the lower the birth rate. A lower birth rate means less over population and less likelyhood that we will eat ourselves into a horrible, starvation-induced population crash. Maybe our species has a built-in fail-safe mechanism; when the population density gets to a certain point, more gay people are born to reduce the population! Its an elegant solution!!

Answer 5

How is this any different from the fact that medical doctors used to bleed their patients and had no knowledge of infections until 200 years ago? Do you take heart surgery seriously?

It's all about making progress and learning from mistakes.

Answer 6

Let me get this straight, no pun intended, people are born gay? Well if that is true then I would call homosexuality a birth defect at least. Even if you apply no moral reasoning, no religious belief, no right and wrong; you cannot say in scientific terms that homosexuality is a normal, natural occurence. Our very existence proves that homosexuality is against nature therefore it is a defect just like being born blind or deaf. Obviously humans are meant to have eyesight and hearing. Likewise, we are meant to propigate the species by having heterosexual relationships.

Answer 7

Psychology isn't an exact science.
That being said,knowledge advances in all sciences-it doesn't
mean we should give up on them. People used to believe the
sun circled Earth instead of the other way around. Does that
mean we should give up on astrophysics?

Answer 8

Because psychology is an inexact science, and as time goes by more is learned and understood. That being said, it will always be an inexact science, for how is it possible to plumb the depths of and understand every single human being?

Answer 9

Medical professionals change their minds about diseases. Diabeates used to be fatal becuase people thought it had something to do with urine and blatter infections.

Answer 10

Things change, you used to wear a diaper and poop in your pants. As we learn more, our thoughts change.