You might think intelligent and highly educated people like professors and consultant psychiatrists would know about straw men and why they shouldn’t use them.
You might also think a certain standard of citing evidence should be required, when there is any, to back up one’s points and when there isn’t, to say so, as in, ‘this is my opinion based on x, y and z.’
And thirdly, (like I showed you in ‘The reasons why series Pts 1, 2 & 3 featuring the UN/WHO) if you cite a study to back up your point, but instead of doing so, you cite a study or article that proves nothing of the kind – but you hoped readers were too busy to check – then you are a lying hypocrite and probably stealing your academic position, salary and kudos.
If you catch me doing any of this – you won’t – you have my permission to write an excoriating post on your own blog, ripping the piss out of me.
I’ll just mention the Jason Arday flustercluck as evidence that plagiarism, blatantly lying to advance your own agenda and pretending the Emperor is fully clad is, if not common in UK academia, getting there fast.
Ok, so here is a BMJ article rebutting the premise ‘Has the closure of psychiatric beds gone too far?’ by Prof and Dr Sonia Johnson. (*)
The BMJ have what they call a ‘head to head’ academic argument series on issues of the day. Not as riveting as a punch up to sort things out in the car park after work or Neo v Morpheus but still. The ‘Yes’ argument was made by Prof Peter Tyrer.
*) Professor of Social and Community Psychiatry, University College London and Consultant Psychiatrist.
Alright, Old School, get on with it please, my eyes are glazing over. Ok, keep your hair on. Prof Johnson’s starting premise is itself a straw man and a cherry picked one at that. She writes ‘Four ideas, each flawed, underpin views that bed closure has gone too far in the UK… (she lists them at this point)…I will challenge each of these ideas in turn.’
Who came up the list of four, Prof? Whose views are being underpinned, you forgot to tell us. Well I never, you don’t mean it was all your own words? And now you’re going to debunk your own list to ‘prove’ that more inpatient beds need decommissioning Are you sure you didn’t make this list up Prof? It certainly didn’t come out of Prof Tyrer’s points in his Yes article. You didn’t cherry pick your list to make it easier to ‘challenge,’ did you? Are you sure you don’t have some emotional antipathy to mental hospitals. No? Fair enough. And you’re going to honestly debunk them are you, not using any of those sneaky tricks I mentioned at the start. Not that I doubt you, but I hope you won’t mind if I check.
Here goes.
Point 1. ‘…that inpatient provision is now meagre.’ She ‘debunks’ this by citing a WHO figure of 60.6 beds per 100,000 population (*) and compares it to some individual European countries. Next, she cites some other study that shows ‘Our rates of involuntary admission are fairly high in international context’ which has precisely zero to do with whether Britain has enough psych beds. She pompously concludes ‘Current bed use levels in the UK are thus unremarkable.’ Full stop. I have spoken, mere mortals.You heard it here first. From the comfort of a professorial chair, far away from real live patients, one can pronounce upon whether Britain has enough mental beds, without even having to bother to accurately assess our national needs, or by studying our own psychiatric population and its make-up, no, simply by comparing it against some figures the WHO published. I think even a dimwit like me could manage that level of academic rigour. Any cosy jobs going?
*) NB this article and figures are from 2011-12. Today’s per 100,000 figure is worse, between 53 – 62. But on this page ‘England’s Psychiatric Bed Collapse: The 91.7% Forensic Truth’ the authors have compared the English population and number of beds in 1955 with today’s – an estimated 17,800 beds for a 58.2 million population – and reached that that 91.7% decline figure. Pretty damning for 70 years of Secretaries of State for Health. I wonder if looking at the comparative numbers of managers and bean-counters might also be useful?
Continues in ‘There aren’t anywhere near enough… Pt 2.
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