Science desk
< July 11	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 13 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Science Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 12[edit]

Scientology, and Mental Health....[edit]

....Can the website CCHR.ORG be placed in that, related articles, such as the ones about mental health? This site claims that the mental health system is, among other things, that the whole mental health system is some kind of fraud. I have a Satellite TV system and on it, I have a TV channel that Scientology puts out there, and among other things, says psychiatry has done some really vile things, and mentions the CCHR.ORG website repeatedly. So can this source be useful? Nuclear Sergeant (talk) 08:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The place to propose this is the talk page of the relevant article. It is not clear which article you mean. However, that website would seem to be the very antithesis of a reliable source, and we will not promote Scientology, which, incidentally, is nothing to do with science. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:39, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What, next you'll be telling us phrenology is unscientific. —Tamfang (talk) 15:36, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen some of these documentaries about psychiatry on their Satellite TV channel, incl the CCHR.ORG website. Just looking for a appropriate place for the link. 🥺🥰 Nuclear Sergeant (talk) 08:54, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia links to cchr.org from our article about them. That would seem to be quite sufficient. Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:06, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some people in psychiatry have done some afful things. It is a field that deals with really bad and distressing problems and many people are desperate for solutions and frankly there are a number of nutters in the profession. And it costs society a lot of money. It is not hard to find things that have gone badly wrong! However this is an organization devoted to destroying the system and promoting pseudoscience because of something their nutter founder said. It is not there to help and represent people with mental health problems like for instance Mind (charity) does in the UK. Wikipedia does not go in for promoting weird idea, and I especially think we should be careful with things like that where people have mental problems. The article about the organization is quite enough for an encyclopaedia. NadVolum (talk) 12:05, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well in fact I don't actually think he was a nutter, just he was good with words and needed money and saw an opportunity and lacked a few morals. NadVolum (talk) 12:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"He" who? --Trovatore (talk) 18:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The founder of scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. He figured out that science fiction sells better when it is turned into a religion. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:50, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A Scientologist once tried to recruit me in the street. He did not say that he was with Scientology but tried to get me to sign up for one of those "tests" they do before telling you what's "wrong" with you and which of their extremely expensive courses will help you. I recognized that he was from Scientology because he also carried around copies of Hubbard's book on Dianetics. So I told him that Scientology is a church and that I don't want anything to do with churches. Now in Germany Scientology has for a long time tried to get official recognition as a Church to get all the financial and legal advantages that come with it. So when I called Scientology a church he was so happy that he completely missed the part about me wanting nothing to do with churches. :) -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK. Our article on the organization mentions Thomas Szasz as the first individual named as a founder, so I didn't know for sure who you meant. I tend to think of Hubbard as a con man, but not Szasz. It seems to me Szasz has some very telling criticisms of both the intellectual foundation and the practice of psychiatry, though he probably went overboard in reaction to a technique that can be useful in relieving human suffering. --Trovatore (talk) 19:29, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming that NadVolum meant Hubbard, but of course I may be wrong. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 19:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously, "this is an organization devoted to destroying the system and promoting pseudoscience" refers to the Church – psychiatry is not "an organization" – and so "their nutty founder" refers to its founder. --Lambiam 22:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I meant L Ron Hubbard okay. Thomas Szasz I would count as one of the nutters in the profession I mentioned above. I don't count L Ron Hubbard as nutty, just lacking in morals. NadVolum (talk) 22:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Szasz actually made a lot of good points. --Trovatore (talk) 02:48, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, Szasz made a lot of good points. But his overall perspective (i.e. mental disorders should not be treated) is wrong.

I mean: it was not his fault that he saw the problems of psychiatry, but he did not really have a solution. tgeorgescu (talk) 03:59, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not an expert on the man. From my casual perspective, it appears he got a little too absolutist on some things (like an illness not really being an illness if you can't have it when you're dead; that never made much sense). But the established alternative? A bunch of "syndromes" defined by pick-four-of-seven vaguely defined symptoms (presumably you have to have the credential to be able to evaluate them)? Diagnoses that come and go with each rev of the DSM, sometimes based on the political evaluation of the person they're named after? It might be the best thing we have, and that may be better than nothing. But I'm supposed to take it seriously as "science"?

That said, right, to my knowledge he never really came up with anything better. --Trovatore (talk) 05:01, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It makes me think of:

Doctor doctor, all year long my husband has been thinking he is a chicken.

Why didn't you call me sooner?

I would have done, but we needed the eggs.

Psychiatry exists in this permanent state of it's not good science, but we need the eggs. Card Zero (talk) 07:28, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Bug A Salt[edit]

Is there a article on this air rifle that uses SALT as ammo? The ad shows it being used to kill flies, other bugs. I googled this thing after I've seen the ad on late night TV. Nuclear Sergeant (talk) 11:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a search icon at the top of every Wikipedia page that enables you to search for articles, such as Bug-A-Salt. Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

CSF plastics[edit]

What is "CSF" in connection with plastics recycling? Facebook just presented me an advertisement (I've tried and failed to link it) for a soft-plastics recycling company, with a link to a fuller description. The advertisement warns me to "Always consider the general CSF risk warning and offer document before investing." What is CSF? The "fuller description" doesn't appear to mention it, none of the items at CSF seems relevant (I assume that plastics aren't made from caesium fluoride, and they're talking about objects already in the household, so Cancer slope factor isn't relevant), and Google searches for <csf plastic> gives only results for Macrophage colony-stimulating factor and Cerebrospinal fluid. Nyttend (talk) 21:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be "crowd-sourced funding"? see Equity crowdfunding AU legislation: [1]. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

https://help.birchal.com/en/articles/1704472-what-is-the-general-csf-risk-warning -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 07:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That page would be more interesting in context if it mentioned plastic or recycl. —Tamfang (talk) 15:16, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The ad is about investing in a plastics recycling company: "Always consider the general CSF risk warning and offer document before investing." -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 17:32, 21 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]