Lili proposes that Pseudoscience Ratbag Fanatic Syndrome be included in the next edition of the DSM

When I woke up this morning I could scarcely believe my ears. On the radio news I was told that climate researchers in Australia are living in fear and enduring dire threats to their safety and the safety of their loved ones, because of fanatical nutbars who don't like their work. I thought "WHAT! That is insane! Who in our community is less deserving of this type of thing than some diligent academics and researchers working away on research that is highly unlikely to be dodgy or unethical, the type of research that only a total geek or an autistic "weather nut" might find interesting." My next thought was "That sounds just like the type of thing that those anti-vaccination nutbars in the US have been doing, to science researchers like Paul Offit." Then I realised that there are probably many interesting similarities between the fanatical, conspiracy-theorist, pseudoscience anti-vaccination crowd in the US and also operating in Australia, who believe that vaccines or environmental contaminants cause autism, and the climate change denier crowd. These movements appear to both involve some type of adult behavioural syndrome, which can attach itself to various types of pseudo-controversies in science, but which has followers displaying the same set of symptoms: a personality in which anger features prominently, suspicion of mainstream science, a suspicion of or alienation from mainstream education, a sense of personal victimization, and an uneducated but persistent interest in science. I really hate to have to write this, but I have a suspicion that at least some of these people might be adult autistics who are displaying the tragic effects of a lifetime of wasted energy and wasted intellectual talents combined with a profound alienation from the education system and society in general. We know for sure that large numbers of the anti-vax crowd in the US are first-degree relatives of people who have an autistic spectrum diagnosis, and that is I believe an important clue to the etiology of this troublesome behavioural syndrome. It also needs to be said that clearly there are many people who have financial interests who are involved in or are directing these movements, and there is nothing irrational about their behaviour - their only deficit is in ethics. These are the people who flog quack cures such as chelation to the parents who believe that their autistic kids have been poisoned by mercury. Shock jocks who grasp an audience by nurturing irrational anger and businesspeople who wish to avoid paying more taxes associated with climate change are also people who have a financial interest in these movements.

Unethical people will always be a blight on humanity, but could there be a cure for the irrational behavioural syndrome? I don't know if there can be any cure, but it could perhaps be prevented from developing if society in general would stop ejecting and rejecting autistic children and adults from the education system, from the workplace and from society in general. As my grandmother used to say - you reap what you sow. Linking these people with autism or some type of behavioural syndrome in no way excuses their reprehensible behaviour. At the end of the day we all have to take responsibility for our own choices, but I simply want to state that some people have a much diminished set of life choices from which to choose from, and this doesn't need to be the case. Illegal acts by sane persons (behavioural syndromes are not the same as insanity) should be punished by the law, but that doesn't solve the problem of alienation.

"One researcher told of receiving threats of sexual assault and violence against her children after her photograph appeared in a newspaper article promoting a community tree-planting day as a local action to mitigate climate change."

WHAT? Do I need to explain the insanity of this situation to any of my readers? I don't think so, it is pretty obvious and my readers are very smart people. Come to think of it, maybe I'm in danger from these denier fanatics as well, and my family. Individually most of my family members have featured in local newspapers doing environmental work projects in similar photos. I had no idea when I took the kids along to plant native re-vegetation in community environmental projects that I was risking provoking the ire of some climate change denier loon, and placing our lives at risk.

Can anyone please help me to understand why non-insane stuff like simple childhood autism, hair-pulling and stuttering have been included in the DSM, the American bible of psychiatry, while the well-known and long-established syndrome of fanatical attachment to pseudo-scientific opposition to sensible scientific interventions into serious scientific problems, like climate change or infectious disease, at times leading to illegal behaviour such as issuing death threats to meteorology researchers and vaccine researchers, is not and has never been included in any edition of the DSM? Perhaps I can agree with the fanatics on one point - that the modern world often doesn't make sense.


Climate of fear: scientists face death threats
BY ROSSLYN BEEBY SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
04 Jun, 2011 12:00 AM
The Canberra Times.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/climate-of-fear-scientists-face-death-threats/2185089.aspx

Wikipedia contributors (accessed 2011) Paul Offit. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paul_Offit&oldid=416341236