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Judgement requires discernment. Most of the opinions on this case I see here and elsewhere are unwarranted opinions generally without any specific information about this case or information on how mental health or insanity pleas work in general.
It is the same level of zero effort opinion put forth by the women on social media who say that the husband did it "because he just looked like he did it okay." Prettying it up by appealing to anger at doctors for covid or wokeness doesn't change the fact that much of the ink spilled on this is uninformed and is absent any specific or general knowledge.
The number of times I've seen people mix together psychology and psychiatry, or argue that somehow this case was going to excuse women from murder charges because of natural hormone variations is unreal. Very basic misunderstandings of facts should be a sign to step back and ask questions.
I'm not seeing a lot of that.
OK, so maybe everyone's judgment about this trial here is bad, exactly as bad as Clancy's supporters. I don't see anywhere in what I wrote that would conflict with that at all. This doesn't change the fact that it's entirely reasonable to conclude that "expert opinions" in this case is no more valuable than one's own judgment. Whatever lack of discernment that anyone here (or anywhere) has, given the current state of psychology and experts thereof, it'd be entirely reasonable to conclude that those experts' opinions are corrupted or biased or incomplete or just plain wrong to a similar extent, i.e. like any non-expert layman's.
If you reframe this discussion as "I, a person who is not an aerospace engineer, is disagreeing with the findings of aerospace engineers who have no financial incentive and the inventor of the airplane, who happens to be hired by the defense" that is an accurate enough presentation.
It also makes the commentary look stupid.
I don't know what your job is, but imagine you are explaining something about your job and a used car salesman slams in like Kanye and goes ima let you finish but you are totally wrong.
That also sounds pretty stupid, no?
This is a terrible analogy, and I think you're smart enough to know it. Let's use an analogy that's more akin to psychology:
The difference between aerospace engineering and homeopathy/psychology is that the former has loads of empirical evidence and concrete track record of success as detectable and measurable by a layman in everyday life, while the latter 2 not only lack empirical evidence but often go directly against it.
If you want to claim that modern psychology as practiced by modern psychologists has as much credibility as modern aerospace engineering as practiced by modern aerospace engineers, then just say that. That can be an interesting venue of conversation, where people can discuss the various details and specifics of what gives these people credibility or doesn't. But just making some vague statement about "expert opinions" and "assuming" they're wrong (again, no such thing happened) looks like you're just trying to smuggle in a bailey via a motte.
I've banged the drum on this being medicine and psychiatry not psychology half a dozen times.
People who literally cannot define psychosis are saying "she's not psychotic and the result of this is that women will get away with murder because of their periods."
The analogy holds.
OK, well I see no prospect of any productive conversation with you on this topic, then. I'll only respond to your comments insomuch as to correct what I see as errors for third parties.
I mean I don't know what to say, the posts here involve a lot of demonstrably untrue statements and I've provided a link that provides education so that people can understand the various contexts and their is a large amount of outright refusal.
Assuming information is more incorrect because it comes from someone with information, training, and experience is obvious idiocy, but it does appear to be the stance you are advocating for.
This is false, it's obviously false by looking at this thread, and I'm puzzled as to how you can write this as if it would be taken seriously. Like, it's so transparently dishonest that I don't know what else to say than that you appear to be obviously operating in bad faith, and I would prefer you didn't.
You claimed:
"The difference between aerospace engineering and homeopathy/psychology is that the former has loads of empirical evidence and concrete track record of success as detectable and measurable by a layman in everyday life, while the latter 2 not only lack empirical evidence but often go directly against it."
Again we are talking about psychiatry, not psychology, but both have plenty of incredibly rigorous, replicable, and reliable research and conclusions. As with anything they also have elements of bleeding edge and hobby research that are questionable.
Critical thinking involves using basic investigation to discriminate between things that are questionable and things that have a strong basis.
Instead you try to imply that psychiatry, psychology, and homeopathy are all the same level of reliable.
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