# kb

id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-15
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-15.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:52.199143+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== 2014 review ==== A 2014 review, concluded that GM crops' effects on farming were positive. According to The Economist, the meta-analysis considered all published English-language examinations of the agronomic and economic impacts between 1995 and March 2014. The study found that herbicide-tolerant crops have lower production costs, while for insect-resistant crops the reduced pesticide use was offset by higher seed prices, leaving overall production costs about the same. Yields increased 9% for herbicide tolerance and 25% for insect resistance. Farmers who adopted GM crops made 69% higher profits than those who did not. The review found that GM crops help farmers in developing countries, increasing yields by 14 percentage points. The researchers considered some studies that were not peer-reviewed, and a few that did not report sample sizes. They attempted to correct for publication bias, by considering sources beyond academic journals. The large data set allowed the study to control for potentially confounding variables such as fertiliser use. Separately, they concluded that the funding source did not influence study results. ==== 2010 review ==== A 2010 article, supported by CropLife International summarised the results of 49 peer-reviewed studies. On average, farmers in developed countries increased yields by 6% and


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-16
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-16.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:52.199143+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Intellectual property === Traditionally, farmers in all nations saved their own seed from year to year. However, since the early 1900s hybrid crops have been widely used in the developed world and seeds to grow these crops are purchased each year from seed producers. The offspring of the hybrid corn, while still viable, lose hybrid vigor (the beneficial traits of the parents). This benefit of first-generation hybrid seeds is the primary reason for not planting second-generation seed. However, for non-hybrid GM crops, such as GM soybeans, seed companies use intellectual property law and tangible property common law, each expressed in contracts, to prevent farmers from planting saved seed. For example, Monsanto's typical bailment license (covering transfer of the seeds themselves) forbids saving seeds, and also requires purchasers to sign a separate patent license agreement. Corporations say that they need to prevent seed piracy, to fulfill financial obligations to shareholders, and to finance further development. DuPont spent approximately half its $2 billion research and development (R&D) budget on agriculture in 2011 while Monsanto spends 9–10% of sales on R&D. Detractors such as Greenpeace say that patent rights give corporations excessive control over agriculture. The Center for Ecoliteracy claimed that "patenting


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-17
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-17.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:52.199143+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== Status ==== In 2014, 64 countries required labeling of all GM foods. These include the European Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China and India. As of March 2015, Israel was in the process of issuing regulations for labeling of food with ingredients from GMOs. Alaska required labeling of GMO fish and shellfish in 2005, even though no GM fish had been approved by the FDA at the time. A 2014 Vermont law went into effect on July 1, 2016, and some food manufacturers (including General Mills, Mars, Kellogg's, the Campbell Soup Company, PepsiCo, ConAgra, Frito-Lay, and Bimbo Bakeries USA) began distributing products either locally or nationwide with labels such as "Partially produced with Genetic Engineering". Other manufacturers removed about 3,000 non-compliant products from sale in Vermont. The federal government of the United States passed a law at the end of that month pre-empting all state laws, including Vermont's. The law requires labeling regulations to be issued by July 2018, and allows indirect disclosure such as with a phone number, bar code, or web site. It is unclear whether the rules will require labeling of oils and sugars from GM crops, where the final product does not contain any


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-18
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-18.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:52.199143+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== United States ==== Four federal district court suits have been brought against Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), the agency within USDA that regulates genetically modified plants. Two involved field trials (herbicide-tolerant turfgrass in Oregon; pharmaceutical-producing corn and sugar in Hawaii) and two the deregulation of GM alfalfa. and GM sugar beet. APHIS lost all four cases at trial, with the judges ruling they failed to diligently follow the guidelines set out in the National Environmental Policy Act. However, the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide ban on GM alfalfa and an appeal court allowed the partial deregulation of GM sugar beets. After APHIS prepared Environmental Impact Statements for both alfalfa and sugar beets they were approved. In 2014, Maui County, Hawaii approved an initiative calling for a moratorium on GMO production and research. The initiative specified penalties including fines and jail for knowing violations and did not limit its scope to commercial agriculture. The initiative passed by about 50.2 to 47.9 percent. On December 15, 2015, the New York Times ran an op-ed titled "Are You Eating Frankenfish?", saying that the United States congress will debate whether genetically engineered salmon should be labeled. ==== European Union ==== Until


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-19
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-19.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:52.199143+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
==== Philippines ==== A petition filed May 17, 2013, by environmental group Greenpeace Southeast Asia and farmer-scientist coalition Masipag (Magsasaka at Siyentipiko sa Pagpapaunlad ng Agrikultura) asked the appellate court to stop the planting of Bt eggplant in test fields, saying the impacts of such an undertaking to the environment, native crops and human health are still unknown. The Court of Appeals granted the petition, citing the precautionary principle stating "when human activities may lead to threats of serious and irreversible damage to the environment that is scientifically plausible but uncertain, actions shall be taken to avoid or diminish the threat". Respondents filed a motion for reconsideration in June 2013 and on September 20, 2013, the Court of Appeals chose to uphold their May decision saying the bt talong field trials violate the people's constitutional right to a "balanced and healthful ecology". The Supreme Court on December 8, 2015, permanently stopped the field testing for Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) talong (eggplant), upholding the decision of the Court of Appeals which stopped the field trials for the genetically modified eggplant. In April 2023, the Supreme Court of the Philippines issued a Writ of Kalikasan ordering the Philippine Department of Agriculture to stop


id: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-20
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies-20.md
category: reference
title: Genetically modified food controversies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:52.199143+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: genetically-modified-food-controversies-20260505-0
summary:
India is an agrarian country with around 60% of its people depending directly or indirectly upon agriculture. From 1995 to 2013, a total of 296,438 farmers have killed themselves in India, or an average of 16,469 suicides per year. During the same period, about 9.5 million people died per year in India from other causes including malnutrition, diseases and suicides that were non-farming related, or about 171 million deaths from 1995 to 2013. Activists and scholars have offered a number of conflicting reasons for farmer suicides, such as monsoon failure, high debt burdens, genetically modified crops, government policies, public mental health, personal issues and family problems. There are also accusations of states reporting inaccurate data on farmer suicides. In India, GM cotton yields in Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu resulted in an average 42% increase in yield in 2002, the first year of commercial planting. A severe drought in Andhra Pradesh that year prevented any increase in yield, because the GM strain was not drought tolerant. Drought-tolerant variants were later developed. Driven by substantially reduced losses to insect predation, by 2011 88% of Indian cotton was modified. There are economic and environmental benefits of GM cotton to farmers in India.


id: gmo-conspiracy-theories-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_conspiracy_theories-0.md
category: reference
title: GMO conspiracy theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_conspiracy_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:53.448793+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: gmo-conspiracy-theories-20260505-0
summary:
GMO conspiracy theories are conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food (also referred to as genetically modified organisms or "GMOs"). These conspiracy theories include claims that agribusinesses, especially Monsanto, have suppressed data showing that GMOs cause harm, deliberately cause food shortages to promote the use of GM food, or have co-opted government agencies such as the United States Food and Drug Administration or scientific societies such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Critics charge that GMO conspiracy theories are largely promulgated by those opposing the production and sale of GMOs, and instances of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories have lately occurred in the context of public health issues that are mostly unrelated to GMOs, including the 2015–16 Zika virus outbreak and concerns over food safety at Chipotle Mexican Grill. == Context == The existence of conspiracy theories relating to the fear over GMOs has been attested to by scientists, journalists, and skeptics who oppose much anti-GMO activism. Such commentators include Michael Shermer (writer of a monthly Skeptic column series for Scientific American), Mark Lynas (an environmental activist and writer who opposed GMOs for years but in 2013 switched positions), and


id: gmo-conspiracy-theories-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_conspiracy_theories-1.md
category: reference
title: GMO conspiracy theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_conspiracy_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:53.448793+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: gmo-conspiracy-theories-20260505-0
summary:
Political science professors Joseph Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent in their book American Conspiracy Theories summarized the people that have adopted GMO conspiracy theories thusly:Another prototypical conspiratorial movement involves those opposed to genetically modified organisms (GMO), in essence a protest against the genetic engineering of food. Not everyone who opposes GMOs is a conspiracy theorist: reasonable people can disagree about research and fail to see small groups of people covertly working against the common good. But most visible and vocal members of this movement, however, are conspiracy theorists. They believe that genetically modified foods are a corporate plot, led by the giant multinational Monsanto, to profit off unhealthy food.Uscinski, writing for Politico in the context of the 2016 United States presidential election, identified GMO conspiracy theories as one of the "honorable mentions" appended to his list of the "five most dangerous conspiracy theories of 2016". He specifically singled-out candidates Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein as promulgators. Michael Shermer and Pat Linse, writing for Skeptic magazine, specify that in terms of political ideology, "GMO conspiracy theories are embraced primarily by those on the left." Scholars have identified ways that the internet has aided proliferation and connection between conspiracy theories including those


id: gmo-conspiracy-theories-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_conspiracy_theories-2.md
category: reference
title: GMO conspiracy theories
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_conspiracy_theories
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:53.448793+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: gmo-conspiracy-theories-20260505-0
summary:
== Chipotle food safety == In the context of mid-2010s concerns over food safety at Chipotle Mexican Grill certain commentators have implied that the outbreaks of food-borne illnesses were sabotage carried out by the biotech industry in retaliation over Chipotle's removal of GMOs from their menu. The claims were identified as "unproven" by the debunking website Snopes. == Alpha-gal syndrome == In 2023, a false conspiracy theory connecting tick-borne alpha-gal syndrome (an acquired allergy to red meat) to Gates Foundation tick research was spread on social media. == Ethical criticism == In Scholars & Rogues, an online progressive political journal, David Lambert, a development program officer for the United Nations, compared the conspiracy theories supported by some in the anti-GMO movement to those supported in the anti-vaccination movement, Like preventable childhood diseases, malnutrition is another great moral failing of our time. GMOs such as golden rice—rice modified to contain high levels of beta carotene in order to compensate for the vitamin A deficiency which kills hundreds of thousands of children around the world and blinds many more every year—and drought resistant crops, which will become increasingly vital in the global south due to climate change, have vast potential to help


id: gmo-omg-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_OMG-0.md
category: reference
title: GMO OMG
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMO_OMG
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:55.330188+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: gmo-omg-20260505-0
summary:
GMO OMG is a 2013 American pseudoscientific documentary film which takes a negative view towards the use of genetically modified organisms used in the production of food, in the United States. The film focuses on Monsanto, a multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation, and their role in the food industry alongside the effects of GMOs and how they are generated. Directed by Jeremy Seifert and produced by Elizabeth Kucinich, it was given a limited release in the United States on September 13, 2013, and received negative reviews from critics. GMO OMG follows Seifert's search of answers: how do GMOs affect people and the planet. These and other questions take Seifert on a journey from his family’s table to Haiti, Paris, Norway, and agra-giant Monsanto. The sole study specifically cited was widely discredited; see Séralini affair. == Film content == Jeremy Seifert’s goal in GMO OMG is to say that citizens of the U.S. are inadequately informed about the corporate manipulation of the food supply. Seifert travels to Haiti, Norway and Paris and interviews commercial and private farmers in order to understand more about their use in these industries. In Haiti Seifert explores the Peasant Movement of Papaye’s resistance towards the


id: march-against-monsanto-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Against_Monsanto-0.md
category: reference
title: March Against Monsanto
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Against_Monsanto
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:57.118713+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: march-against-monsanto-20260505-0
summary:
The March Against Monsanto was an international grassroots movement and protest against Monsanto, a producer of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide. The movement was founded by Tami Canal in response to the failure of California Proposition 37, a ballot initiative which would have required labeling food products made from GMOs. Advocates support mandatory labeling laws for food made from GMOs. The initial march took place on May 25, 2013. The number of protesters who took part is uncertain; figures of "hundreds of thousands" and the organizers' estimate of "two million" were variously cited. Events took place in between 330 and 436 cities around the world, mostly in the United States. Many protests occurred in Southern California, and some participants carried signs expressing support for mandatory labeling of GMOs that read "Label GMOs, It's Our Right to Know", and "Real Food 4 Real People". Canal said that the movement would continue its "anti-GMO cause" beyond the initial event. Further marches occurred in October 2013 and in May 2014 and May 2015. The protests were reported by news outlets including ABC News, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and CNN (in the


id: march-against-monsanto-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Against_Monsanto-1.md
category: reference
title: March Against Monsanto
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Against_Monsanto
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:57.118713+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: march-against-monsanto-20260505-0
summary:
President Barack Obama's signing, on March 26, 2013, of the Farmer Assurance Provision, which is Section 735 of US H.R. 933, provided further motivation for the protesters. The section of the bill is called the "Monsanto Protection Act" by critics, and it authorizes the United States Department of Agriculture to allow the planting and cultivation of genetically modified food while environmental reviews are being completed, even if there is a legal ruling against their approval. Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders attempted, unsuccessfully, to introduce Senate Amendment 965 to the Agriculture Reform, Food, and Jobs Act of 2013, legislation that would require labeling of GM food products. Sanders criticized Monsanto for its opposition to his initiative, saying that Monsanto and other biotech companies "were able to gather a whole lot of support in the Senate". Prior to the march, the March Against Monsanto group hosted an essay on their website highlighting what they saw as lack of attention to the Act in the mainstream media. Dave Murphy, founder of Food Democracy Now!, called the controversy over H.R. 933 "the turning point in the debate on political lobbying and genetic engineering in the U.S." and he described the March Against Monsanto as


id: a-rock-star-bucks-a-coffee-shop-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rock_Star_Bucks_a_Coffee_Shop-0.md
category: reference
title: A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rock_Star_Bucks_a_Coffee_Shop
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:58.309403+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-rock-star-bucks-a-coffee-shop-20260505-0
summary:
"A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop" is a song recorded by Neil Young and Promise of the Real. It is a protest song aimed at the companies Starbucks and Monsanto. The piece comes from the concept album The Monsanto Years, which primarily criticizes Monsanto. == Background and lyrics == The song was released as a single in May 2015 and is the first song on the album The Monsanto Years. It refers to the lawsuit by Monsanto against Vermont due to the state's attempt at passing a GMO labeling law. The song also references "the poison tide of Monsanto" and a farmer who signs a GMO deal when Young sings, "I want a cup of coffee but I don't want a GMO. I'd like to start my day off without helping Monsanto." In a brief review of the song, Stefan Schmidt in The National Singles Round-Up also remarked that song did not hold back against critiquing Starbucks and Monsanto and suggested that Young had not lost his appetite for tackling political issues. === Venue === Young also introduced an acoustic version of the song in Maui while performing at "OUTGROW Monsanto", a festival held to protest Monsanto's business practices


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-0.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Anti-psychiatry, sometimes spelled antipsychiatry, is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment can often be more damaging than helpful to patients. The term anti-psychiatry was coined in 1912, and the movement emerged in the 1960s, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionable effectiveness and harm associated with psychiatric medications, the failure of psychiatric medications to demonstrate any deterministic treatments, and legal concerns about equal human rights and civil freedom being nullified by the presence of diagnosis. Historical critiques of psychiatry came to light after focus on the extreme harms associated with electroconvulsive therapy and insulin shock therapy. The term "anti-psychiatry" is in dispute and often used to dismiss all critics of psychiatry, many of whom agree that a specialized role of helper for people in emotional distress may at times be appropriate, and allow for individual choice around treatment decisions. Beyond concerns about effectiveness, anti-psychiatry might question the philosophical and ethical underpinnings of psychotherapy and psychoactive medication, seeing them as shaped by social and political concerns rather than the autonomy and integrity of the individual mind. They may believe that "judgements on matters of sanity should be the prerogative of the philosophical


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-1.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
The first widespread challenge to the prevailing medical approach in Western countries occurred in the late 18th century. Part of the progressive Age of Enlightenment, a "moral treatment" movement challenged the harsh, pessimistic, somatic (body-based) and restraint-based approaches that prevailed in the system of hospitals and "madhouses" for people considered mentally disturbed, who were generally seen as wild animals without reason. Alternatives were developed, led in different regions by ex-patient staff, physicians themselves in some cases, and religious and lay philanthropists. This "moral treatment" was seen as pioneering more humane psychological and social approaches, whether or not in medical settings; however, it also involved some use of physical restraints, threats of punishment, and personal and social methods of control. As it became the establishment approach in the 19th century, opposition to its negative aspects also grew. According to Michel Foucault, there was a shift in the perception of madness, whereby it came to be seen as less about delusion, i.e. disturbed judgment about the truth, than about a disorder of regular, normal behavior or will. Foucault argued that, prior to this, doctors could often prescribe travel, rest, walking, retirement and generally engaging with nature, seen as the visible form of


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-2.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Various 19th-century critiques of the newly emerging field of psychiatry overlap thematically with 20th-century anti-psychiatry, for example in their questioning of the medicalization of "madness". Those critiques occurred at a time when physicians had not yet achieved hegemony through psychiatry, however, so there was no single, unified force to oppose. Nevertheless, there was increasing concern at the ease with which people could be confined, with frequent reports of abuse and illegal confinement. For example, Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, had previously argued for more government oversight of "madhouses" and for due process prior to involuntary internment. He later argued that husbands used asylum hospitals to incarcerate their disobedient wives, and in a subsequent pamphlet that wives even did the same to their husbands. It was also proposed that the role of asylum keeper be separated from doctor, to discourage exploitation of patients. There was general concern that physicians were undermining personhood by medicalizing problems, by claiming they alone had the expertise to judge, and by arguing that mental disorder was physical and hereditary. The Alleged Lunatics' Friend Society arose in England in the mid-19th century to challenge the system and campaign for rights and reforms. In the United


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-3.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1930s === In the 1930s several controversial medical practices were introduced and framed as "treatments" for mental disorders, including inducing seizures (by electroshock, insulin or other drugs) or psychosurgery (lobotomy). In the US, beginning in 1939 through 1951, over 50,000 lobotomy operations were performed in mental hospitals, a procedure ultimately seen as inhumane. Holocaust historians argued that the medicalization of social programs and systematic euthanasia of people in German mental institutions in the 1930s provided the institutional, procedural, and doctrinal origins of the mass murder of the 1940s. The Nazi programs were called Action T4 and Action 14f13. The Nuremberg Trials convicted a number of psychiatrists who held key positions in Nazi regimes. As one Swiss psychiatrist stated: "A not so easy question to be answered is whether it should be allowed to destroy lives objectively 'unworthy of living' without the expressed request of its bearers. (...) Even in incurable mentally ill ones suffering seriously from hallucinations and melancholic depressions and not being able to act, to a medical colleague I would ascript the right and in serious cases the duty to shorten—often for many years—the suffering" (Bleuler, Eugen, 1936: "Die naturwissenschaftliche Grundlage der Ethik". Schweizer Archiv Neurologie und


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-4.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
In the 1960s fresh voices mounted a new challenge to the pretensions of psychiatry as a science and the mental health system as a successful humanitarian enterprise. These voices included: Ernest Becker, Erving Goffman, R.D. Laing; Laing and Aaron Esterson, Thomas Scheff, and Thomas Szasz. Their writings, along with others such as articles in the journal The Radical Therapist, were given the umbrella label "antipsychiatry" despite wide divergences in philosophy. This critical literature, in concert with an activist movement, emphasized the hegemony of medical model psychiatry, its spurious sources of authority, its mystification of human problems, and the more oppressive practices of the mental health system, such as involuntary hospitalisation, drugging, and electroshock. The psychiatrists R D Laing (from Scotland), Theodore Lidz (from America), Silvano Arieti (from Italy) and others, argued that "schizophrenia" and psychosis were understandable, and resulted from injuries to the inner-self-inflicted by psychologically invasive "schizophrenogenic" parents or others. It was sometimes seen as a transformative state involving an attempt to cope with a sick society. Laing, however, partially dissociated himself from his colleague Cooper's term "anti-psychiatry". Laing had already become a media icon through bestselling books (such as The Divided Self and The Politics of Experience) discussing


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-5.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
New professional approaches were developed as an alternative or reformist complement to psychiatry. The Radical Therapist, a journal begun in 1971 in North Dakota by Michael Glenn, David Bryan, Linda Bryan, Michael Galan and Sara Glenn, challenged the psychotherapy establishment in a number of ways, raising the slogan "Therapy means change, not adjustment." It contained articles that challenged the professional mediator approach, advocating instead revolutionary politics and authentic community making. Social work, humanistic or existentialist therapies, family therapy, counseling and self-help and clinical psychology developed and sometimes opposed psychiatry. The psychoanalytically trained psychiatrist Szasz, although professing fundamental opposition to what he perceives as medicalization and oppressive or excuse-giving "diagnosis" and forced "treatment", was not opposed to other aspects of psychiatry (for example attempts to "cure-heal souls", although he also characterizes this as non-medical). Although generally considered anti-psychiatry by others, he sought to dissociate himself politically from a movement and term associated with the radical left wing. In a 1976 publication "Anti-psychiatry: The paradigm of a plundered mind", which has been described as an overtly political condemnation of a wide sweep of people, Szasz claimed Laing, Cooper and all of anti-psychiatry consisted of "self-declared socialists, communists, anarchists or at least anti-capitalists


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-6.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
=== Civilization as a cause of distress === In recent years,psychotherapists David Smail and Bruce E. Levine, considered part of the anti-psychiatry movement, have written widely on how society, culture, politics and psychology intersect. They have written extensively of the "embodied nature" of the individual in society, and the unwillingness of even therapists to acknowledge the obvious part played by power and financial interest in modern Western society. They argue that feelings and emotions are not, as is commonly supposed, features of the individual, but rather responses of the individual to their situation in society. Even psychotherapy, they suggest, can only change feelings in as much as it helps a person to change the "proximal" and "distal" influences on their life, which range from family and friends, to the workplace, socio-economics, politics and culture. R. D. Laing emphasized family nexus as a mechanism by which individuals become victimized by those around them, and spoke about a dysfunctional society. === Inadequacy of clinical interviews used to diagnose 'diseases' === Psychiatrists have been trying to differentiate mental disorders based on clinical interviews since the era of Kraepelin, but now realize that their diagnostic criteria are imperfect. Tadafumi Kato writes, "We psychiatrists should


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-7.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
==== Experiments admitting "healthy" individuals into psychiatric care ==== In 1972, psychologist David Rosenhan published the Rosenhan experiment, a study questioning the validity of psychiatric diagnoses. The study arranged for eight individuals with no history of psychopathology to attempt admission into psychiatric hospitals. The individuals included a graduate student, psychologists, an artist, a housewife, and two physicians, including one psychiatrist. All eight individuals were admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Psychiatrists then attempted to treat the individuals using psychiatric medication. All eight were discharged within 7 to 52 days. In a later part of the study, psychiatric staff were warned that pseudo-patients might be sent to their institutions, but none were actually sent. Nevertheless, a total of 83 patients out of 193 were believed by at least one staff member to be actors. The study concluded that individuals without mental disorders were indistinguishable from those with mental disorders. Critics such as Robert Spitzer cast doubt on the validity and credibility of the study, but did concede that the consistency of psychiatric diagnoses needed improvement. The challenge of the validity versus the reliability of diagnostic categories continues to plague diagnostic systems. Neuroscientist Tadafumi Kato advocates for a new


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-8.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
=== Psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry === Critics of psychiatry commonly express a concern that the path of diagnosis and treatment in contemporary society is primarily or overwhelmingly shaped by profit prerogatives, echoing a common criticism of general medical practice in the United States, where many of the largest psychopharmaceutical producers are based. Psychiatric research has demonstrated varying degrees of efficacy for improving or managing a number of mental health disorders through either medications, psychotherapy, or a combination of the two. Typical psychiatric medications include stimulants, antidepressants, anxiolytics, and antipsychotics (neuroleptics). On the other hand, organizations such as MindFreedom International and World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry maintain that psychiatrists exaggerate the evidence of medication and minimize the evidence of adverse drug reaction. They and other activists believe individuals are not given balanced information, and that current psychiatric medications do not appear to be specific to particular disorders in the way mainstream psychiatry asserts; and psychiatric drugs not only fail to correct measurable chemical imbalances in the brain, but rather induce undesirable side effects. For example, though children on Ritalin and other psycho-stimulants become more obedient to parents and teachers, critics have noted that they can also develop


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-9.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Psychiatrists around the world have been involved in the suppression of individual rights by states in which the definitions of mental disease have been expanded to include political disobedience. Nowadays, in many countries, political prisoners are sometimes confined and abused in mental institutions. Psychiatry possesses a built-in capacity for abuse which is greater than in other areas of medicine. The diagnosis of mental disease can serve as proxy for the designation of social dissidents, allowing the state to hold persons against their will and to insist upon therapies that work in favor of ideological conformity and in the broader interests of society. In a monolithic state, psychiatry can be used to bypass standard legal procedures for establishing guilt or innocence and allow political incarceration without the ordinary odium attaching to such political trials. Under the Nazi regime in the 1940s, the "duty to care" was violated on an enormous scale. In Germany alone 300,000 individuals that had been deemed mentally ill, work-shy or feeble-minded were sterilized. An additional 200,000 were euthanized. These practices continued in territories occupied by the Nazis further afield (mainly in eastern Europe), affecting thousands more. From the 1960s up to 1986, political abuse of psychiatry was


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-10.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
=== Therapeutic state === The "therapeutic state" is a phrase coined by Szasz in 1963. The collaboration between psychiatry and government leads to what Szasz calls the "therapeutic state", a system in which disapproved actions, thoughts, and emotions are repressed ("cured") through pseudomedical interventions. Thus suicide, unconventional religious beliefs, racial bigotry, unhappiness, anxiety, shyness, sexual promiscuity, shoplifting, gambling, overeating, smoking, and illegal drug use are all considered symptoms or illnesses that need to be cured. When faced with demands for measures to curtail smoking in public, binge-drinking, gambling or obesity, ministers say that "we must guard against charges of nanny statism". The "nanny state" has turned into the "therapeutic state" where nanny has given way to counselor. Nanny just told people what to do; counselors also tell them what to think and what to feel. The "nanny state" was punitive, austere, and authoritarian, the therapeutic state is touchy-feely, supportive—and even more authoritarian. According to Szasz, "the therapeutic state swallows up everything human on the seemingly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of health and medicine, just as the theological state had swallowed up everything human on the perfectly rational ground that nothing falls outside the province of God


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-11.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
parsimony, as straightforward as the phenomena to be explained allow (Occam's razor); empirically testable and falsifiable; changeable, i.e. if necessary, changes may be made to the theory as new data are discovered; progressive, encompasses previous successful descriptions and explains and adds more; provisional, i.e. tentative; the theory does not attempt to assert that it is a final description or explanation. Psychiatrists Colin A. Ross and Alvin Pam maintain that biopsychiatry does not qualify as a science on many counts. Psychiatric researchers have been criticized on the basis of the replication crisis and textbook errors. Questionable research practices are known to bias key sources of evidence. Stuart A. Kirk has argued that psychiatry is a failed enterprise, as mental illness has grown, not shrunk, with about 20% of American adults diagnosable as mentally ill in 2013. According to a 2014 meta-analysis, psychiatric treatment is no less effective for psychiatric illnesses in terms of treatment effects than treatments by practitioners of other medical specialties for physical health conditions. The analysis found that the effect sizes for psychiatric interventions are on average on par with other fields of medicine. == Diverse paths == Szasz has since (2008) re-emphasized his disdain for the term


id: anti-psychiatry-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry-12.md
category: reference
title: Anti-psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:08:59.919288+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Critics of this view from an anti-psychiatry perspective are quick to point to the industrial aspects of psychiatric treatment itself as a primary causal factor in this situation that is described as "deteriorating". The numbers of people labeled "mentally ill", and in treatment, together with the severity of their conditions, have been going up primarily due to the direct efforts of the mental health movement, and mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, and not their detractors. Envisioning "mental health treatment" as violence prevention has been a big part of the problem, especially as you are dealing with a population that is not significantly more violent than any other group. On 7 October 2016, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto announced that they had established a scholarship for students doing theses in the area of antipsychiatry. Called "The Bonnie Burstow Scholarship in Antipsychiatry", it is to be awarded annually to an OISE thesis student. An unprecedented step, the scholarship should further the cause of freedom of thought and the exchange of ideas in academia. The scholarship is named in honor of Bonnie Burstow, a faculty member at the University of Toronto, a radical feminist, and


id: ah-v-west-london-mental-health-trust-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH_v_West_London_Mental_Health_Trust-0.md
category: reference
title: AH v West London Mental Health Trust
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH_v_West_London_Mental_Health_Trust
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:01.131386+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ah-v-west-london-mental-health-trust-20260505-0
summary:
AH vs West London Mental Health Trust was a landmark case in England, which established a legal precedent in 2011 when Albert Laszlo Haines (AH), a patient in Broadmoor Hospital, a high security psychiatric hospital, was able to exercise a right to a fully open public mental health review tribunal to hear his appeal for release. The case and the legal principles it affirmed have been described as opening up the secret world of tribunals and National Health Service secure units, and as having substantial ramifications for mental health professionals and solicitors, though how frequently patients will be willing or able to exercise the right is not yet clear. The detention of Haines under the Mental Health Act had been continuous since 1986, mainly at Broadmoor Hospital run by West London Mental Health NHS Trust. The tribunal panel ultimately decided there were sufficient grounds for continued psychiatric detention but recommended better collaborative work towards psychiatric rehabilitation and gradual supported pathways to lower security then release to community mental health services. == Legal process == === Gaining the right === Haines's request for his mental health tribunal to be fully open to the public was first made in 2009 but was


id: ah-v-west-london-mental-health-trust-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH_v_West_London_Mental_Health_Trust-1.md
category: reference
title: AH v West London Mental Health Trust
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AH_v_West_London_Mental_Health_Trust
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:01.131386+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ah-v-west-london-mental-health-trust-20260505-0
summary:
== Personal background == The legal process made extensive reference to Haines's life as a child and adult, and he was the focus of some national press coverage which included personal interviews. Born in 1959 in Hammersmith, London, Albert Haines suffered neglect and abuse from a young age. He was put in residential care for many years, as were his three sisters and two brothers. A mental health assessment at just five years of age described him as 'emotionally maladjusted'. He was sexually and physically abused. After leaving residential homes once an adult, Haines stayed in hostels, bedsits or on the streets. He drank alcohol and took cannabis, cocaine and amphetamines. He was convicted of criminal damage in 1979 and in 1980 for possession of an offensive weapon. He was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. In May 1986 while a patient of the Maudsley Hospital run by South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, Haines went in carrying a machete and a small knife. There is some disagreement between media reports as to whether he threatened staff and gave himself up, or tried to attack a member of staff but was prevented. No one was physically hurt. Later that year


id: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act-0.md
category: reference
title: Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:02.278569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-0
summary:
The Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act of 1956 (Public Law 84-830) was an Act of Congress passed to improve mental health care in the United States territory of Alaska. Initially bipartisan and uncontroversial, it became the focus of a major political dispute after far-right anti-communist activists nicknamed it the "Siberia Bill" and denounced it as being part of a communist plot to hospitalize and brainwash Americans. Campaigners asserted that it was part of an international Jewish, Roman Catholic or psychiatric conspiracy intended to establish United Nations-run concentration camps in the United States. The legislation in its original form was sponsored by the Democratic Party, but after it ran into opposition, it was rescued by the conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Under Goldwater's sponsorship, a version of the legislation without the commitment provisions that were the target of intense opposition from a variety of far-right, anti-Communist and fringe religious groups was passed by the United States Senate. The controversy still plays a prominent role in the Church of Scientology's account of its campaign against psychiatry. The Act succeeded in its initial aim of establishing a mental health care system for Alaska, funded by income from lands allocated to a mental health


id: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act-1.md
category: reference
title: Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:02.278569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-0
summary:
to modernize procedures for such hospitalization (including commitment), care, and treatment and to authorize the Territory to modify or supersede such procedures; to assist in providing for the Territory necessary facilities for a comprehensive mental-health program in Alaska, including inpatient and outpatient facilities; to provide for a land grant to the Territory to assist in placing the program on a firm long-term basis; and to provide for a ten-year program, of grants-in-aid to the Territory to enable the Territory gradually to assume the full operating costs of the program. The bill provided for a cash grant of $12.5 million (about $94 million at 2007 prices) to be disbursed to the Alaskan government in a number of phases, to fund the construction of mental health facilities in the territory. To meet the ongoing costs of the program, the bill transferred one million acres (4,000 km2) of federally owned land in Alaska to the ownership of the proposed new Alaska Mental Health Trust as a grant-in-aid—the federal government owned about 99% of the land of Alaska at the time. The trust would then be able to use the assets of the transferred land (principally mineral and forestry rights) to obtain an ongoing


id: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act-2.md
category: reference
title: Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:02.278569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-0
summary:
=== Further opposition === After the Santa Ana Register published its article, a nationwide network of activists began a vociferous campaign to torpedo the Alaska Mental Health Bill. The campaigners included, among other groups and individuals, the white supremacist Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith; Women for God and Country; the For America League; the Minute Women of the U.S.A.; the right-wing agitator Dan Smoot; the anti-Catholic former US Army Brigadier General Herbert C. Holdridge; and L. Ron Hubbard's Church of Scientology, which had been founded only two years earlier. Increasingly strong statements were made by the bill's opponents through the course of the spring and summer of 1956. In his February 17 bulletin, Dan Smoot told his subscribers: "I do not doubt that the Alaska Mental Health Act was written by sincere, well-intentioned men. Nonetheless, it fits into a sinister pattern which has been forming ever since the United Nations was organized." Dr. George A. Snyder of Hollywood sent a letter to all members of Congress in which he demanded an investigation of the Alaska Mental Health Bill's proponents for "elements of treason against the American people behind the front of the mental health program". The Keep America Committee of


id: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act-3.md
category: reference
title: Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:02.278569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-0
summary:
The arguments of the bill's opponents attracted little support in the Senate. The Eisenhower administration, the Alaska territorial government and mainstream religious groups were all in favor of the bill. The Alaska Presbyterian Church gave the bill its unanimous support, issuing a statement declaring: "As Christian citizens of Alaska we believe this is a progressive measure for the care and treatment of the mentally ill of Alaska. We deplore the present antiquated methods of handling our mentally ill." It also urged the National Council of Churches to mobilize support for the bill. An overwhelming majority of senators of both parties were also supportive. The bill's original author, Alaska Delegate Bob Bartlett, spoke for many of the bill's proponents when he expressed his bafflement at the response that it had received: I am completely at a loss in attempting to fathom the reasons why certain individuals and certain groups have now started a letter-writing campaign ... to defeat the act. I am sure that if the letter writers would consult the facts, they would join with all others not only in hoping this act would become law but in working for its speedy passage and approval. Other senators expressed similar mystification


id: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act-4.md
category: reference
title: Alaska Mental Health Enabling Act
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Mental_Health_Enabling_Act
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:02.278569+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: alaska-mental-health-enabling-act-20260505-0
summary:
I don't know if you're aware that there was a plan in 1955 in this country, Ted, to repeat what was done in Russia. There was going to be a Siberia, USA, set up on a million acres in Alaska to send mental patients. They were going to lessen the commitment laws, you could basically get into an argument with somebody and be sent up there. This sounds very odd. Nobody's ever heard about it. That's in no small part thanks to the Church of Scientology. I must say, though, that when that bill was killed in Congress, the war was on with psychiatry where they declared war on us ... It was a major, major, major flap for the psychiatrists when it got voted down, because then the slogan around the country began, 'Siberia, USA,' and it was really the first time that psychiatry had been denigrated publicly, that they weren't the science that they had been promoting themselves to be. And they took it upon themselves then to start dealing with anybody who would oppose them. === Conspiracy theories === In Ron's Journal 67, Hubbard identified "the people behind the Siberia Bill", who he asserted were less than


id: american-association-for-the-abolition-of-involuntary-mental-hospitalization-20260505-0
category: reference
title: American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization
tags: science, encyclopedia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:03.450444+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: american-association-for-the-abolition-of-involuntary-mental-hospitalization-20260505-0
file:
data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_for_the_Abolition_of_Involuntary_Mental_Hospitalization-0.md

summary:
The American Association for the Abolition of Involuntary Mental Hospitalization (AAAIMH) was an organization founded in 1970 by Thomas Szasz, George Alexander, and Erving Goffman for the purpose of abolishing involuntary psychiatric intervention, particularly involuntary commitment. The founding of the AAAIMH was announced by Szasz in 1971 on the American Journal of Public Health and American Journal of Psychiatry. In the Platform Statement of the association, one can read: Throughout the entire history of psychiatry, involuntary psychiatric interventions, and especially involuntary mental hospitalization, have been regarded as morally and professionally legitimate procedures. No group of physicians, lawyers, or social scientists has ever rejected such interventions as contrary to elementary principles of dignity and liberty and hence as morally and professionally illegitimate. The AAAIMH does. Board chairman of the association was Thomas Szasz. The association provided legal help to psychiatric patients and published a journal, The Abolitionist. The organisation was dissolved in 1980. == See also == Thomas Szasz Wrongful involuntary commitment == References ==

source_url:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_for_the_Abolition_of_Involuntary_Mental_Hospitalization


id: biopsychiatry-controversy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychiatry_controversy-0.md
category: reference
title: Biopsychiatry controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychiatry_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:04.639948+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: biopsychiatry-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
The biopsychiatry controversy is a dispute over which viewpoint should predominate and form a basis of psychiatric theory and practice. The debate is a criticism of a claimed strict biological view of [psychiatric thinking. Its critics include disparate groups such as the antipsychiatry movement and some academics. == Overview of opposition to biopsychiatry == Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry aims to investigate determinants of mental disorders devising remedial measures of a primarily somatic nature. This has been criticized by Alvin Pam for being a "stilted, unidimensional, and mechanistic world-view", so that subsequent "research in psychiatry has been geared toward discovering which aberrant genetic or neurophysiological factors underlie and cause social deviance". According to Pam, the "blame the body" approach, which typically offers medication for mental distress, shifts the focus from disturbed behavior in the family to putative biochemical imbalances. == Research issues == === 2003 status in biopsychiatric research === Biopsychiatric research has produced reproducible abnormalities of brain structure and function, as well as a strong genetic component for a number of psychiatric disorders (although the latter has been shown to be correlative rather than causative). It has also elucidated some of the mechanisms of action of medications that effectively treat


id: biopsychiatry-controversy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychiatry_controversy-1.md
category: reference
title: Biopsychiatry controversy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biopsychiatry_controversy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:04.639948+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: biopsychiatry-controversy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Reductionism === Niall McLaren emphasizes in his books Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry that the major problem with psychiatry is that it lacks a unified model of the mind and has become entrapped in a biological reductionist paradigm. The reasons for this biological shift are intuitive, as reductionism has been very effective in other fields of science and medicine. However, despite reductionism's efficacy in explaining the smallest parts of the brain, this does not explain the mind, which is where he contends the majority of psychopathology stems from. An example would be that every aspect of a computer can be understood scientifically down to the last atom; however, this does not reveal the program that drives this hardware. He also argues that the widespread acceptance of the reductionist paradigm leads to a lack of openness to Self-criticism, "a smugness that stops the very engine of scientific progress." He has proposed his own natural dualist model of the mind, the biocognitive model, which is rooted in the theories of David Chalmers and Alan Turing and does not fall into the "dualist's trap" of spiritualism. == Economic influences on psychiatric practice == American Psychiatric Association president Steven S. Sharfstein, M.D. has


id: citizens-commission-on-human-rights-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Rights-0.md
category: reference
title: Citizens Commission on Human Rights
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Rights
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:05.874476+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: citizens-commission-on-human-rights-20260505-0
summary:
Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is a lobbying organization founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, its stated mission is to "eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections." It is regarded by most non-Scientologists as a Scientology front group whose purpose is to push the organization's anti-psychiatry agenda. == Campaigns == The group has organized media campaigns against various psychiatrists, psychiatric organizations and pharmaceutical companies, including Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of Prozac. The campaign against Eli Lilly in 1991 caused Prozac's market share of antidepressants to drop from 25% to 21%. The group campaigned against the use of Ritalin for the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a disorder which the organization dismisses as nonexistent. The campaign was part of the Ritalin class action lawsuits against Novartis (the manufacturer of Ritalin), CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), and the American Psychiatric Association (APA); all five lawsuits were dismissed in 2002. In 2003, CCHR presented a report with the title "The Silent Death of America's Children" to the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, with case histories of several dozen under-aged psychiatric


id: citizens-commission-on-human-rights-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Rights-1.md
category: reference
title: Citizens Commission on Human Rights
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Human_Rights
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:05.874476+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: citizens-commission-on-human-rights-20260505-0
summary:
== Controversies == Rissmiller labels CCHR as a radical antipsychiatry organization. It encourages the arrest and incarceration of psychiatrists for their alleged crimes against humanity because L. Ron Hubbard had written, "There is not one institutional psychiatrist alive who ... could not be arraigned and convicted of extortion, mayhem and murder." CCHR is a front group for the Church of Scientology, which sponsors the organization. In 1993, the US Internal Revenue Service granted CCHR tax exemption as part of an agreement with the Church of Scientology International and Religious Technology Center (RTC) under which the RTC took responsibility for CCHR's tax liabilities. CCHR has been criticized by journalist Andrew Gumbel for "crudeness" and "paranoia" in its criticism of psychiatry. In 1988, CCHR claimed that Professor Sir Martin Roth of Newcastle University had used LSD in tests on mental patients in the 1960s. The statements were publicized in the Northern Echo newspaper, which was ordered by an English court to pay "very substantial" libel damages to Roth after the court found that CCHR's claims were "highly defamatory" and "utterly false." Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR and winner of an International Association of Scientologists Freedom Medal award, has been implicated in covering


id: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network-0.md
category: reference
title: Critical Psychiatry Network
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:07.013684+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-0
summary:
The Critical Psychiatry Network (CPN) is a group of psychiatrists who advocate for reform towards a more reflective, skeptical and patient-centered approach to psychiatry. CPN was created in January 1999 by psychiatrists in the United Kingdom, in response to proposals by the British government to amend the Mental Health Act 1983. The network was concerned about the potential for increased coercion in the act. Among their founders was Joanna Moncrieff, current co-chair of the network. "Critical psychiatry" can be contrasted with "anti-psychiatry", which is more abolitionist than reformative. Participants in the Critical Psychiatry Network share concerns about psychiatric practice where and when it is heavily dependent upon diagnostic classification and the use of psychopharmacology. These concerns reflect their recognition of poor construct validity amongst psychiatric diagnoses and scepticism about the efficacy of anti-depressants, mood stabilisers and anti-psychotic agents. According to them, these concerns have ramifications in the area of the use of psychiatric diagnosis to justify civil detention and the role of scientific knowledge in psychiatry, and an interest in promoting the study of interpersonal phenomena such as relationship, meaning and narrative in pursuit of better understanding and improved treatment. CPN has similarities and contrasts with earlier criticisms of conventional


id: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network-1.md
category: reference
title: Critical Psychiatry Network
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:07.013684+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-0
summary:
=== The role of scientific knowledge in psychiatry === There is a strong view by CPN that contemporary psychiatry relies too much on the medical model, and attaches too much importance to a narrow biomedical view of diagnosis. This can, in part, be understood as the response of an earlier generation of psychiatrists to the challenge of what has been called 'anti-psychiatry'. Psychiatrists such as David Cooper, R. D. Laing and Thomas Szasz (although the latter two rejected the term) were identified as part of a movement against psychiatry in the 1960s and 1970s. Stung by these attacks, as well as accusations that in any case psychiatrists could not even agree who was and who was not mentally ill, academic psychiatrists responded by stressing the biological and scientific basis of psychiatry through strenuous efforts to improve the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis based in a return to the traditions of one of the founding fathers of the profession, Emil Kraepelin. The use of standardized diagnostic criteria and checklists may have improved the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, but the problem of its validity remains. The investment of huge sums of money in Britain, America and Europe over the last half-century has failed


id: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network-2.md
category: reference
title: Critical Psychiatry Network
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:07.013684+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-0
summary:
== Efficacy == One comparison study showed 34% of patients of a 'medical model' team were still being treated after two years, compared with only 9% of patients of a team using a 'non-diagnostic' approach (less medication, little diagnosis, individual treatment plans tailored to the person's unique needs). However the study comments that cases may have left the system in the 'non-diagnostic' approach, not because treatment had worked, but because (1) multi-agency involvement meant long-term work may have been continued by a different agency, (2) the starting question of 'Do we think our service can make a positive difference to this young person's life?' rather than 'What is wrong with this young person?' may have led to treatment not being continued, and (3) the attitude of viewing a case as problematic when no improvement has occurred after five sessions may have led to treatment not being continued (rather than the case 'drifting' on in the system). == Critical Psychiatry and Postpsychiatry == Peter Campbell first used the term 'postpsychiatry' in the anthology Speaking Our Minds, which imagines what would happen in a world after psychiatry. Independently, Patrick Bracken and Philip Thomas coined the word later and used it as the


id: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network-3.md
category: reference
title: Critical Psychiatry Network
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Psychiatry_Network
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:07.013684+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: critical-psychiatry-network-20260505-0
summary:
== Critical Psychiatry Network - Activities == CPN is involved in four main areas of work, writing and the publication of academic and other papers, organizing and participating in conferences, activism and support. A glance at the members' publication page on the CPN website reveals in excess of a hundred papers, books and other articles published by people associated with the network over the last twelve years or so. These cover a wide range of topics, from child psychiatry, psychotherapy, the role of diagnosis in psychiatry, critical psychiatry, philosophy and postpsychiatry, to globalization and psychiatry. CPN has also organized a number of conferences in the past, and continues to do so in collaboration with other groups and bodies. It has run workshops for psychiatrists and offers peer supervision face to face and via videolink. It also supports service user and survivor activists who campaign against the role of the pharmaceutical industry in psychiatry, and the campaign for the abolition of the schizophrenia label. The CPN has published a statement in support. == References == == Further reading == Bracken, Patrick; Thomas, Philip (2005). Postpsychiatry: Mental health in a postmodern world. International perspectives in philosophy and psychiatry. Oxford, UK: Oxford University


id: dialectics-of-liberation-congress-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectics_of_Liberation_Congress-0.md
category: reference
title: Dialectics of Liberation Congress
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectics_of_Liberation_Congress
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:08.200218+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: dialectics-of-liberation-congress-20260505-0
summary:
The congress on the Dialectics of Liberation was an international congress organised in London between 15 and 30 July 1967. It was organised by R. D. Laing, David Cooper, the American educationalist Joe Berke, and Leon Redler. The scope of the conference was to "demystify human violence in all its forms, and the social systems from which it emanates, and to explore new forms of action". Significant speakers included Black Power leader Stokely Carmichael, beat poet Allen Ginsberg and humanist Marxist Herbert Marcuse. A short book of the conference was published in 1968 by Penguin Books, and some documentaries were made of the event, including Anatomy of Violence and Ah, Sunflower. == History == In 1965, R. D. Laing and colleagues came together as a community for themselves and people in a state of psychosis. As a result, Kingsley Hall became home to the Philadelphia Association and one of the most radical experiments in psychiatry. In January 1967, International Times announced: "This summer, in July, the Institute of Phenomenological Studies will make the move. A congress will convene in London on the Dialectics of Liberation. The congress intends to examine and expose the system of societal and inter-personal influences that


id: family-nexus-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_nexus-0.md
category: reference
title: Family nexus
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_nexus
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:09.390734+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: family-nexus-20260505-0
summary:
In psychology, a family nexus is a common viewpoint held and reinforced by the majority of family members regarding events in the family and relationships with the world. The term was coined by R. D. Laing, who believed that this nexus "exists only insofar as each person incarnates the nexus ... maintaining his interiorization of the group unchanged." The concept is similar to the "family psychic apparatus (FPA) ... an unconscious psychic basis, common to members of the family group, inducing a specific experience of belonging." == Laing and schizophrenia == Laing was particularly interested in schizophrenia, which he believed could be understood if seen from the viewpoint of the person concerned. He saw how a powerful family nexus could victimize one member, usually a child, who found themselves in the position of not being able to speak or even think the truth without being chastised by the group, who often had vested interests in perpetuating the family myth and excluding reality. In Laing's opinion, "what is called a psychotic episode in one person can often be understood as a crisis of a peculiar kind in the inter-experience of the nexus." Often described as part of the "antipsychiatry" movement, Laing


id: icarus-project-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_Project-0.md
category: reference
title: Icarus Project
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_Project
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:10.561081+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: icarus-project-20260505-0
summary:
The Icarus Project (2002–2020) was an American network of peer-support groups and media projects with the stated aim of changing the social stigmas regarding mental health. The project was rebranded as Fireweed Collective in 2020. == History == In 2002, Sascha Altman DuBrul wrote an article published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian about his experiences being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He founded the Icarus Project with Jacks McNamara, an artist and writer. The Project sought to create spaces where people could talk freely about their lived experiences in regards to their mental health. Years later, musician-activist Bonfire Madigan Shive and counsellor/activist Will Hall became key members in The Icarus Project's administration and development. == Mission == The Icarus Project's stated aims were to provide a "support network and education project by and for people who experience the world in ways that are often diagnosed as mental illness." The responsibilities of the group are to gather people locally for support, and access to alternatives to mainstream medical diagnosis and treatment. The Project advocates self-determination and caution when approaching psychiatric care. It encourages alternatives to the medical model that is accepted by mental health professionals. In 2005, journalist Jennifer Itzenson noted


id: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)-0.md
category: reference
title: Indeterminacy (philosophy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:11.730438+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
Indeterminacy, in philosophy, can refer both to common scientific and mathematical concepts of uncertainty and their implications and to another kind of indeterminacy deriving from the nature of definition or meaning. It is related to deconstructionism and to Nietzsche's criticism of the Kantian noumenon. == Indeterminacy in philosophy == === Introduction === The problem of indeterminacy arises when one observes the eventual circularity of virtually every possible definition. It is easy to find loops of definition in any dictionary, because this seems to be the only way that certain concepts, and generally very important ones such as that of existence, can be defined in the English language. A definition is a collection of other words, and in any finite dictionary if one continues to follow the trail of words in search of the precise meaning of any given term, one will inevitably encounter this linguistic indeterminacy. Philosophers and scientists generally try to eliminate indeterminate terms from their arguments, since any indeterminate thing is unquantifiable and untestable; similarly, any hypothesis which consists of a statement of the properties of something unquantifiable or indefinable cannot be falsified and thus cannot be said to be supported by evidence that does not falsify it.


id: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)-1.md
category: reference
title: Indeterminacy (philosophy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:11.730438+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
"Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases – which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal." "What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and; anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions- they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins." If one states an equation between two things, one states, in effect, that they are the same thing. It can be argued that this cannot possibly be true, since one will then consider the properties which the two sides of the equation share – that which makes them


id: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)-2.md
category: reference
title: Indeterminacy (philosophy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:11.730438+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
"Foucault directs his analysis toward the 'statement', the basic unit of discourse that he believes has been ignored up to this point. 'Statement' is the English translation from French énoncé (that which is enunciated or expressed), which has a peculiar meaning for Foucault. 'Énoncé' for Foucault means that which makes propositions, utterances, or speech acts meaningful. In this understanding, statements themselves are not propositions, utterances, or speech acts. Rather, statements create a network of rules establishing what is meaningful, and it is these rules that are the preconditions for propositions, utterances, or speech acts to have meaning. Statements are also 'events'. Depending on whether or not they comply with the rules of meaning, a grammatically correct sentence may still lack meaning and inversely, an incorrect sentence may still be meaningful. Statements depend on the conditions in which they emerge and exist within a field of discourse. It is huge collections of statements, called discursive formations, toward which Foucault aims his analysis. [...] Rather than looking for a deeper meaning underneath discourse or looking for the source of meaning in some transcendental subject, Foucault analyzes the conditions of existence for meaning. In order to show the principles of meaning production in


id: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)-3.md
category: reference
title: Indeterminacy (philosophy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:11.730438+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
"Unless there were 'meaningless' or 'indeterminate' variation in the triggering conditions of the various frogs' eyes, there could be no raw material [...] for selection for a new purpose to act upon. The indeterminacy that Fodor (and others) see as a flaw [...] is actually a prediction for such evolution [of "purpose"]. The idea that there must be something determinate that the frog's eye really means – some possibly unknowable proposition in froggish that expresses exactly what the frog's eye is telling the frog's brain – is just essentialism applied to meaning (or function). Meaning, like function on which it so directly depends, is not something determinate at its birth. [...]" Dennet argues, controversially, against qualia in Consciousness Explained. Qualia are attacked from several directions at once: he maintains they do not exist (or that they are too ill-defined to play any role in science, or that they are really something else, i.e. behavioral dispositions). They cannot simultaneously have all the properties attributed to them by philosophers—incorrigible, ineffable, private, directly accessible and so on. The multiple drafts theory is leveraged to show that facts about qualia are not definite. Critics object that one's own qualia are subjectively quite clear and


id: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)-4.md
category: reference
title: Indeterminacy (philosophy)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(philosophy)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:11.730438+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: indeterminacy-philosophy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Criticism === Proponents of a deterministic universe have criticised various applications of the concept of indeterminacy in the sciences; for instance, Albert Einstein once stated that "God does not play dice" in a succinct (but now unpopular) argument against the theory of quantum indeterminacy, which states that the actions of particles of extremely low mass or energy are unpredictable because an observer's interaction with them changes either their positions or momenta. (The "dice" in Einstein's metaphor refer to the probabilities that these particles will behave in particular ways, which is how quantum mechanics addressed the problem.) At first it might seem that a criticism could be made from a biological standpoint in that an indeterminate idea would seem not to be beneficial to the species that holds it. A strong counterargument, however, is that not all traits exhibited by living organisms will be seen in the long term as evolutionarily advantageous, given that extinctions occur regularly and that phenotypic traits have often died out altogether – in other words, an indeterminate meme may in the long term demonstrate its evolutionary value to the species that produced it in either direction; humans are, as yet, the only species known to


id: integrative-milieu-model-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrative_milieu_model-0.md
category: reference
title: Integrative milieu model
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrative_milieu_model
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:12.915990+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: integrative-milieu-model-20260505-0
summary:
The integrative milieu model, developed by Kevin F. McCready, is an alternative treatment regime to the medical model of psychiatry for treating people suffering from psychological distress. A central part of the anti-psychiatry movement, being a close friend of Peter Breggin and a board member of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, McCready based his model on the idea that human psychological suffering is not caused by a physiological disease or a chemical imbalance, but by a compromise to a person's humanity. He believed that the biomedical model of psychiatry was a compromise to a person's humanity, stripping its patients from elements he considers to be a necessary and natural part of human life experience. This model of treatment combined elements from psychodynamic theories, particularly the theories of Carl G. Jung, humanism, and existentialism. The integrative milieu model's approach is one which attempts to create a new community for its participants to interact within. This community is based on four main ideas: The milieu must be a therapeutic container which allows an intensive exploration of the personal and collective psyche. It must therefore have a structure which maintains continuity and a sense of security. The professionals


id: involuntary-treatment-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment-0.md
category: reference
title: Involuntary treatment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:14.215035+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: involuntary-treatment-20260505-0
summary:
Involuntary treatment or mandatory treatment refers to medical treatment undertaken without the consent of the person being treated. Involuntary treatment is permitted by law in some countries when overseen by the judiciary through court orders; other countries defer directly to the medical opinions of doctors. Globally and even within countries, what is meant by the term "involuntary treatment" is not agreed upon. In/voluntary when applied to medical treatments could refer to a purely legal perspective, an entirely ethical lens, or with components of both. Therefore use of the term is best accompanied by specification to avoid confusion. Some countries have general legislation allowing for any treatment deemed necessary if an individual is unable to consent to a treatment due to a perceived lack of capacity, other legislation may specifically deal with involuntary psychiatric treatment of individuals who have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. Psychiatric treatment normally happens in a psychiatric hospital after some form of involuntary commitment, though individuals may be compelled to undergo treatment outside of hospitals via outpatient commitment. The diagnosis of mental disorders can be carried out by some form clinical practitioner, or in some cases law enforcement or others, to be a danger to themselves


id: involuntary-treatment-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment-1.md
category: reference
title: Involuntary treatment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:14.215035+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: involuntary-treatment-20260505-0
summary:
Psychiatric diagnoses have been used for political purposes. Psychiatry can be used to bypass standard legal procedures and political incarceration. The use of hospitals instead of jails prevents those detainend from receiving legal aid, makes indefinite incarceration possible, discredits the individuals and their ideas. During the Nazi era and the Soviet rule religious and political dissenters were labeled as "mentally ill" and subjected to inhumane "treatments". From the 1960s to 1986, abuse of psychiatry for political and ideological purposes was reported to be systematic in the Soviet Union, and occasional in Eastern European countries such as Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. == Legislative distinctions == Legislation may allow for involuntary treatment of a particular disease or class of diseases such as mental disorders. Some countries have legislation to involuntarily detain or examine those suspected to have tuberculosis, or treat them if infected. Some countries have general legislation allowing for any treatment deemed necessary if an individual is unable to consent to a treatment due to lack of capacity. Those treated for mental health disorders are committed before involuntary treatment. Those under community treatment orders (also known as outpatient commitment in some countries) may be ordered to take medication, and if


id: involuntary-treatment-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment-2.md
category: reference
title: Involuntary treatment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:14.215035+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: involuntary-treatment-20260505-0
summary:
The faith of Jehovah's Witnesses forbids blood transfusion. Courts in the United States have consistently upheld the right of competent adults to decline blood transfusion even when it would be life-saving, though there have been exceptions where the death of a patient could leave a child orphaned. In the United States, courts have ordered pregnant women to involuntarily undergo caesarean section, intrauterine transfusion, and enforced bed rest. There are cases of clinicians threatening pregnant patients with removal of child custody or withdrawal of care if they decline treatment. In the UK, courts are unable to force treatment on pregnant women who are deemed to have capacity, however as of 2016 there were no cases of a still pregnant woman being deemed to have capacity by a court. == Children == Parents or medical doctors may make decision about the treatment of children, a principle known as parens patriae. In the United States, doctors are responsible for providing a good standard of care for patients who are children which can lead them to make decisions at odds with the parents wishes. Parents have less autonomy to make decisions about their children's care than adult patients have over their own care. Treatment


id: involuntary-treatment-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment-3.md
category: reference
title: Involuntary treatment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_treatment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:14.215035+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: involuntary-treatment-20260505-0
summary:
=== Detractors === A number of civil and human rights activists, anti-psychiatry groups, medical and academic organizations, researchers, and members of the psychiatric survivors movement vigorously oppose involuntary treatment on human rights grounds or on grounds of effectiveness and medical appropriateness, particularly with respect to involuntary administration of mind altering substances, ECT, and psychosurgery. Some criticism has been made regarding cost, as well as of conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry. Critics, such as the New York Civil Liberties Union, have denounced the strong racial and socioeconomic biases in forced treatment orders. Special rapporteurs of the United Nations (Catalina Devandas Aguilar and Dainius Puras) consider it as an infringement of the dignity of those subjected to it, with severe consequences for their physical and mental integrity and call on concerned states to put an end to respect individual's autonomy. Involuntary treatment is compared to torture on at least two special reports of the UN, one noting "forced psychiatric interventions, when committed against persons with psychosocial disabilities, satisfies both intent and purpose required under the article 1 of the Convention against Torture, notwithstanding claims of 'good intentions' by medical professionals." However, jurisdiction of some countries (e.g. France) requires intended harm


id: kingsley-hall-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Hall-0.md
category: reference
title: Kingsley Hall
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Hall
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:15.405277+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kingsley-hall-20260505-0
summary:
Kingsley Hall is a community centre, in Powis Road, Bromley-by-Bow in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It dates back to the work of Doris and Muriel Lester, who had a nursery school in nearby Bruce Road. Their brother, Kingsley Lester, died aged 26 in 1914, leaving money for work in the local area for "educational, social and recreational" purposes, with which the Lesters bought and converted a disused chapel. The current Hall was built with a stone-laying ceremony taking place on 14 July 1927. A second community centre, also known as Kingsley Hall with a church (KHCCC - Kingsley Hall Church and Community Centre), was later built by the sisters in the neighbouring London Borough of Barking and Dagenham on Parsloes Avenue in Dagenham. KHCCC underwent redevelopment in 2018. During the General Strike of 1926, Kingsley Hall in Bow became a shelter and soup kitchen for workers. Mohandas Gandhi stayed in Kingsley Hall in 1931 and the building now houses the Gandhi Foundation. The room where he stayed has been preserved. In 1935, hunger marchers on the Jarrow March stayed at the Hall. In 1965 R. D. Laing and his associates asked the Lesters for permission to use the


id: kingsley-hall-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Hall-1.md
category: reference
title: Kingsley Hall
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Hall
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:15.405277+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kingsley-hall-20260505-0
summary:
Sir Walford Davies laid the brick of MUSIC Mr J.A.R. Cairns laid the brick of CITIZENSHIP Miss Sybil Thorndike laid the brick of DRAMA Miss De Natorp laid the brick of EDUCATION Mrs D.S. Waterlow laid the brick of OPEN AIR and COUNTRY Mr C. Cowles-Voysey laid the brick of ARCHITECTURE Mr P.R. LeMare laid the brick of COMMERCE Dr Maxwell Garnett laid the brick of WORLD BROTHERHOOD Miss Mary Arden Shakespeare laid the brick of FRIENDSHIP Mr John Galsworthy laid the brick of LITERATURE Mrs J. Douglas Watson laid the brick of the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN Margaret Martin laid the brick of KINGSLEY HALL CLUB George Lansbury laid the brick of SUNDAY EVENING SERVICE Mrs Harvey laid the brick of the WOMEN'S CLUB Tom McCarthy laid the brick of the WAYFARERS Mayor T.J.Goodway laid the brick of the BOROUGH Lady Clare Annesley laid the brick of SERVICE George M. Ll. Davies MP laid the brick of POLITICS Gilbert Bayes laid the brick of ART Kingsley Hall (on Powis Road) was opened on 15 September 1928. The building included residential units or cells, and also had a clubroom and dining room, kitchen, office and a space for worship. == Gandhi


id: kingsley-hall-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Hall-2.md
category: reference
title: Kingsley Hall
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsley_Hall
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:15.405277+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: kingsley-hall-20260505-0
summary:
== R.D. Laing and Kingsley Hall == Following World War II, with the welfare state having undertaken much of the work advocated by the Lester sisters, Kingsley Hall continued on a quieter note as a youth hostel and community activity centre. In 1965 R. D. Laing and his colleagues asked the Lesters for use of the Hall as a community for themselves and people in a state of psychosis. As a result, Kingsley Hall became home to the Philadelphia Association and one of the most radical experiments in psychiatry. Based on the notion that psychosis, a state of reality akin to living in a waking dream, is not an illness simply to be eliminated through the electric shocks favoured in the Western tradition of the time but, as in other cultures, a state of trance which could even be valued as mystical or Shamanistic, it sought to allow schizophrenic people the space to explore their madness and internal chaos. Residents (in the grip of psychosis) were often treated with kindness and respect with sincere efforts to alleviate their suffering. One notable resident of this experiment was Mary Barnes. Along with resident psychiatrist Joseph Berke, Mary later went on to write


id: la-borde-clinic-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Borde_Clinic-0.md
category: reference
title: La Borde Clinic
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Borde_Clinic
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:16.595846+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: la-borde-clinic-20260505-0
summary:
The La Borde Clinic (French: [la bɔʁd]; French: Clinique de la Borde), also known as the Cour-Cheverny Clinic (Clinique de Cour-Cheverny), is a psychiatric clinic that opened in 1953 in the town of Cour-Cheverny in the Loire Valley of France. Still in operation as of August 2023, the La Borde Clinic is a model in institutional psychotherapy, with citizens actively participating in running it. == History == The clinic was founded by Jean Oury, a psychiatrist who previously worked in experimental therapy at the psychiatric clinic of Saint-Alban. The psychiatric practice borrowed the idea of Hermann Simon that it is necessary to look after the establishment and to look after each citizen, while returning initiative and responsibility to them by developing situations in which they can work and express their creativity. According to its constitution written by Oury, La Borde was founded on three principles: democratic centralism, a rotating basis for the division of labor, and anti-bureaucracy. From the mid-50s Félix Guattari worked at La Borde, developing its practice and organization and producing alongside Oury a body of theoretical work on the practice and theory of schizoanalysis, set in practice at La Borde, and included in his 1972 collaboration with


id: mad-in-america-website-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_in_America_(website)-0.md
category: reference
title: Mad in America (website)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_in_America_(website)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:17.817020+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mad-in-america-website-20260505-0
summary:
Mad in America is a webzine dedicated to critical perspectives on modern psychiatry. It was founded in 2012 by Robert Whitaker, who also publishes the site. Whitaker founded the Mad in America website in response to the positive reactions to his books Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic. Its mission statement originally stated, Mad in America’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for rethinking psychiatric care in the United States (and abroad). We believe that the current drug-based paradigm of care has failed our society, and that scientific research, as well as the lived experience of those who have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder, calls for profound change. The site has been described as "one important umbrella site for critical engagements with psychiatry" and an example of "active groups and actors with a history of providing robust commentary on the DSM" by Martyn Pickersgill in the Journal of Medical Ethics. == References == == External links == Official website


id: mad-pride-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_pride-0.md
category: reference
title: Mad pride
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_pride
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:19.001355+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mad-pride-20260505-0
summary:
Mad pride is a mass movement of current and former users of mental health services, as well as those who have never used mental health services but are aligned with the mad pride framework. The movement encourages individuals with mental illness to be proud of their 'Mad' identity. In recent years, Mad pride has increasingly aligned with the neurodiversity movement, recognizing the interconnected nature of mental health advocacy and neurodivergent experiences. == Core principles == Mad pride activists seek to reclaim terms such as "mad", "nutter", crazy and "psycho" from misuse, such as in tabloid newspapers, and to transform them from negative to positive descriptors. Through mass media campaigns, mad pride activists seek to re-educate the general public on the causes of mental disorders and the experiences of those using the mental health system. Mad pride was formed in 1993 in response to local community prejudices towards people with a psychiatric history living in boarding homes in the Parkdale area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada; since then, an event has been held in Toronto every year (except for 1996). A similar movement began around the same time in the United Kingdom, and by the late 1990s, mad pride events were organized


id: mast-meher-baba-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(Meher_Baba)-0.md
category: reference
title: Mast (Meher Baba)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mast_(Meher_Baba)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:21.308869+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mast-meher-baba-20260505-0
summary:
A mast (from Persian مست mast), in Meher Baba's teaching, is a person who is overwhelmed with love for God, accompanied with external disorientation resembling intoxication. The word was coined by Meher Baba and originates from the Sufi term mast-Allah meaning "intoxicated with God" from Persian mast, literally meaning "intoxicated." Another interpretation of its origin is that it is derived from masti, a Persian word meaning "overpowered." == Overview == According to Meher Baba, a mast is one who is entranced or spellbound by internal spiritual experiences and ecstasies, who cannot function outwardly in an ordinary way, and may appear mad to a casual outside observer. Such experiences, according to Meher Baba, stem from the station of a mast's consciousness (his or her state of consciousness) on inner planes of involution. In The Wayfarers: Meher Baba With the God-Intoxicated, British medical doctor William Donkin documents at length Meher Baba's contacts with masts throughout South Asia (primarily Iran, India, and Pakistan). The introduction, written by Meher Baba, explains their unique state and their outward characteristics. He carefully distinguishes the mast state from madness and explains that in the case of the mad person, the mind is sped up, while in the


id: mindfreedom-international-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindFreedom_International-0.md
category: reference
title: MindFreedom International
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MindFreedom_International
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:22.495272+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: mindfreedom-international-20260505-0
summary:
MindFreedom International is an international antipsychiatry organization. Based in the United States, it was founded in 1990 to advocate against involuntary psychiatric treatment. Its stated mission is to protect the rights of people who have been labeled with psychiatric disorders. == Origins and purpose == MindFreedom International is rooted in the psychiatric survivors movement, which arose out of the civil rights movement. The precursors of MFI include ex-patient groups of the 1970s such as the Portland, Oregon-based Insane Liberation Front and the Mental Patients' Liberation Front in New York. The organization was inspired by Judi Chamberlin's 1978 work, On Our Own: Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System. Chamberlin was an ex-patient and co-founder of the Mental Patients' Liberation Front. Coalescing around the ex-patient newsletter Dendron, in late 1988 leaders from several of the main national and grassroots psychiatric survivor groups felt that an independent, human rights coalition focused on problems in the mental health system was needed. That year the Support Coalition International (SCI) was formed. In 2005, the SCI changed its name to MFI with David W. Oaks as its director. SCI's first public action was to stage a counter-conference and protest in May 1990 in New


id: philadelphia-association-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Association-0.md
category: reference
title: Philadelphia Association
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Association
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:24.760270+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: philadelphia-association-20260505-0
summary:
The Philadelphia Association is a UK charity concerned with the understanding and relief of mental suffering. It was founded in 1965 by the radical psychiatrist and psychoanalyst R. D. Laing along with fellow psychiatrists David Cooper, Joseph Berke, Aaron Esterson, writer Clancy Sigal as well as John Heaton, Joan Cunnold and Sid Briskin. Kingsley Hall, the first of a number of community houses, was founded in 1965 (a building dating from 1928). The Philadelphia Association (PA) came into being to challenge and to widen the discourse around the teaching and practise of psychotherapy and continues to offer a training, an affordable therapy service and two community houses for those seeking retreat. == References == == External links == Philadelphia Association website


id: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement-0.md
category: reference
title: Psychiatric survivors movement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:25.950630+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
summary:
The psychiatric survivors movement (more broadly consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement) is a diverse association of individuals who either currently access mental health services (known as consumers or service users), or who have experienced interventions by psychiatry that were unhelpful, harmful, abusive, or illegal. The psychiatric survivors movement arose out of the civil rights movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and the personal histories of psychiatric abuse experienced by patients. The key text in the intellectual development of the survivor movement, at least in the US, was Judi Chamberlin's 1978 text On Our Own: Patient Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System. Chamberlin was an ex-patient and co-founder of the Mental Patients' Liberation Front. Coalescing around the ex-patient newsletter Dendron, in late 1988, leaders from several of the main national and grassroots psychiatric survivor groups felt that an independent, human rights coalition focused on problems in the mental health system was needed. That year the Support Coalition International (SCI) was formed. SCI's first public action was to stage a counter-conference and protest in New York City, in May 1990, at the same time as (and directly outside of) the American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting. In 2005, the SCI changed its name


id: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement-1.md
category: reference
title: Psychiatric survivors movement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:25.950630+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
summary:
=== Early 20th century === A few decades later, another former psychiatric patient, Clifford W. Beers, founded the National Committee on Mental Hygiene, which eventually became the National Mental Health Association. Beers sought to improve the plight of individuals receiving public psychiatric care, particularly those committed to state institutions. His book, A Mind that Found Itself (1908), described his experience with mental illness and the treatment he encountered in mental hospitals. Beers' work stimulated public interest in more responsible care and treatment. However, while Beers initially blamed psychiatrists for tolerating mistreatment of patients, and envisioned more ex-patient involvement in the movement, he was influenced by Adolf Meyer and the psychiatric establishment, and toned down his hostility as he needed their support for reforms. His reliance on rich donors and his need for approval from experts led him to hand over to psychiatrists the organization he helped establish. In the UK, the National Society for Lunacy Law Reform was established in 1920 by angry ex-patients sick of their experiences and complaints being patronisingly discounted by the authorities who were using medical "window dressing" for essentially custodial and punitive practices. In 1922, ex-patient Rachel Grant-Smith added to calls for reform of the


id: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement-2.md
category: reference
title: Psychiatric survivors movement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:25.950630+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
summary:
"With the advent of the modern antipsychotic medications and psychosocial treatments, the great majority are able to live in a range of open settings in the community—with family, in their own apartments, in board-and-care homes, and in halfway houses." Coming to the fore in the 1960s, an anti-psychiatry movement challenged the fundamental claims and practices of mainstream psychiatry. The ex-patient movement of this time contributed to, and derived much from, antipsychiatry ideology, but has also been described as having its own agenda, described as humanistic socialism. For a time, the movement shared aims and practices with "radical therapists", who tended to be Marxist. However, the consumer/survivor/ex-patients gradually felt that the radical therapists did not necessarily share the same goals and were taking over, and they broke away from them in order to maintain independence. By the 1970s, the women's movement, gay rights movement, and disability rights movements had emerged. It was in this context that former mental patients began to organize groups with the common goals of fighting for patients' rights and against forced treatment, stigma and discrimination, and often to promote peer-run services as an alternative to the traditional mental health system. Unlike professional mental health services, which were


id: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement-3.md
category: reference
title: Psychiatric survivors movement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:25.950630+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
summary:
=== 1980s and 1990s === By the 1980s, individuals who considered themselves "consumers" of mental health services rather than passive "patients" had begun to organize self-help/advocacy groups and peer-run services. While sharing some of the goals of the earlier movement, consumer groups did not seek to abolish the traditional mental health system, which they believed was necessary. Instead, they wanted to reform it and have more choice. Consumer groups encouraged their members to learn as much as possible about the mental health system so that they could gain access to the best services and treatments available. In 1985, the National Mental Health Consumers' Association was formed in the United States. A 1986 report on developments in the United States noted that "there are now three national organizations ... The ‘conservatives’ have created the National Mental Health Consumers' Association ... The ‘moderates’ have formed the National Alliance of Mental Patients ... The ‘radical’ group is called the Network to Abolish Psychiatry". Many, however, felt that they had survived the psychiatric system and its "treatments" and resented being called consumers. The National Association of Mental Patients in the United States became the National Association of Psychiatric Survivors. "Phoenix Rising: The Voice of


id: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement-4.md
category: reference
title: Psychiatric survivors movement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:25.950630+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
summary:
== The movement today == In the United States, the number of mental health mutual support groups (MSG), self-help organizations (SHO) (run by and for mental health consumers and/or family members) and consumer-operated services (COS) was estimated in 2002 to be 7,467. In Canada, CSI's (Consumer Survivor Initiatives) are the preferred term. "In 1991 Ontario led the world in its formal recognition of CSI's as part of the core services offered within the mental health sector when it began to formally fund CSI's across the province. Consumer Survivor Initiatives in Ontario Building an Equitable Future' (2009) pg 7. The movement may express a preference for the "survivor" label over the "consumer" label, with more than 60 percent of ex-patient groups reported to support anti-psychiatry beliefs and considering themselves to be "psychiatric survivors." There is some variation between the perspective on the consumer/survivor movement coming from psychiatry, anti-psychiatry or consumers/survivors themselves. The most common terms in Germany are "Psychiatrie-Betroffene" (people afflicted by/confronted with psychiatry) and "Psychiatrie-Erfahrene" (people who have experienced psychiatry). Sometimes the terms are considered as synonymous but sometimes the former emphasizes the violence and negative aspects of psychiatry. The German national association of (ex-)users and survivors of psychiatry is


id: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement-5.md
category: reference
title: Psychiatric survivors movement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_survivors_movement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:25.950630+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
summary:
== Impact == Research into consumer/survivor initiatives (CSIs) suggests they can help with social support, empowerment, mental wellbeing, self-management and reduced service use, identity transformation and enhanced quality of life. However, studies have focused on the support and self-help aspects of CSIs, neglecting that many organizations locate the causes of members’ problems in political and social institutions and are involved in activities to address issues of social justice. A 2006 series of studies in Canada compared individuals who participated in CSIs with those who did not. The two groups were comparable at baseline on a wide range of demographic variables, self-reported psychiatric diagnosis, service use, and outcome measures. After a year and a half, those who had participated in CSIs showed significant improvement in social support and quality of life (daily activities), fewer days of psychiatric hospitalization, and more were likely to have stayed in employment (paid or volunteer) and/or education. There was no significant difference on measures of community integration and personal empowerment, however. There were some limitations to the findings; although the active and nonactive groups did not differ significantly at baseline on measures of distress or hospitalization, the active group did have a higher mean score and


id: outline-of-the-psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_psychiatric_survivors_movement-0.md
category: reference
title: Outline of the psychiatric survivors movement
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_the_psychiatric_survivors_movement
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:27.093109+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: outline-of-the-psychiatric-survivors-movement-20260505-0
summary:
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the psychiatric survivors movement: Psychiatric survivors movement – diverse association of individuals who are either currently clients of mental health services, or who consider themselves survivors of interventions by psychiatry, or who identify themselves as ex-patients of mental health services. The movement typically campaigns for more choice and improved services, for empowerment and user-led alternatives, and against the prejudices they face in society. == What is the psychiatric survivors movement? == The psychiatric survivors movement can be described as all of the following: a political movement a human rights movement part of the disability rights movement Psychiatric survivors as a group is: an advocacy group a community a special interest group == Participants == Victim of psychiatry Mental health consumer Mental patient : currently redirects to Mental disorder Former mental patient Lunatic === Supporters === Richard Bentall Patch Adams Robert Whittaker The Radical Therapist == History of the psychiatric survivors movement == History of mental disorders === People === 18th century Samuel Bruckshaw 19th century Elizabeth Packard Early 20th century Clifford Whittingham Beers Late 20th century to the present Linda Andre Ted Chabasinski Judi Chamberlin Lyn Duff


id: psychrights-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PsychRights-0.md
category: reference
title: PsychRights
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PsychRights
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:28.239758+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: psychrights-20260505-0
summary:
The Law Project for Psychiatric Rights, or PsychRights, is an Alaskan organization that seeks to "end the abuses against people diagnosed with mental illness through individual legal representation." The organization is especially focused on fighting involuntary medication and the forced use of electroshock therapy. It contends that the involuntary treatment system operates largely illegally, in that requirements such as the "less restrictive alternative" requirement are often not followed. PsychRights has mounted legal challenges in Alaska, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and other states. == References == == External links == PsychRights homepage


id: radical-psychology-network-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Psychology_Network-0.md
category: reference
title: Radical Psychology Network
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Psychology_Network
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:29.451481+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: radical-psychology-network-20260505-0
summary:
The Radical Psychology Network (RadPsyNet) is an organization with the goal of encouraging reform in the field of psychology. It began in Toronto in 1993 when two dozen people attended a discussion at the American Psychological Association convention entitled "Will Psychology Pay Attention to Its Own Radical Critics?" == Overview == The aim of the group is to change the status quo of psychology. Challenging psychology's traditional focus on minor reform, members emphasise enhancing human welfare by working for fundamental social change. They claim that psychology itself has too often oppressed people rather than liberated them and they work to redress this imbalance. In keeping with this aim, RadPsyNet co-founders Dennis Fox and Isaac Prilleltensky co-edited Critical Psychology: An Introduction in 1997, and many RadPsyNet members are active in academic critical psychology as well as in opposition to psychological abuses. Today the group has more than 500 members in over three dozen countries. Members include psychologists and others, academics and practitioners, faculty and students, psychotherapists and patients. It publishes the online Radical Psychology Journal (published for ten years until its final issue in 2011) and sponsors an active email discussion list. == See also == Critical psychology Psychopolitical validity, coined


id: the-radical-therapist-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist-0.md
category: reference
title: The Radical Therapist
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:30.684198+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-radical-therapist-20260505-0
summary:
The Radical Therapist was a journal that emerged in the early 1970s in the context of the counter-culture and the radical U.S. antiwar movement. It was an "alternative journal" in the mental health field that published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972, and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period". It was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behaviour modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment". == Background == In the 1960s, a movement developed to challenge many principals of psychiatry and dispute the mental health system as a successful humanitarian enterprise. The challenge came from Ernest Becker, Erving Goffman, R.D. Laing, Thomas Scheff, and Thomas Szasz. Their writings, along with articles in the journal The Radical Therapist, were given the umbrella label anti-psychiatry despite wide divergences in philosophy. This critical literature, with an associated left-wing activist movement, "emphasized the hegemony of medical model psychiatry, its spurious sources of authority, its mystification of human problems, and the more oppressive practices of the mental health system, such as involuntary hospitalisation, drugging, and electroshock". == Beginnings: Minot, North Dakota == The


id: the-radical-therapist-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist-1.md
category: reference
title: The Radical Therapist
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:30.684198+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-radical-therapist-20260505-0
summary:
The Manifesto promised that the journal would provide a needed forum for all people working in the therapy fields; work to liberate therapy, therapists and others from backwards ideology; help develop new training programs; encourage the elaboration of a new psychology of men and women, as well as a new concept of family and community life; foster the development of more responsive therapy programs under client control; encourage new techniques; and confront the various ways U.S. society uses mental health institutions to oppress various people. The journal was highly critical of the "Establishment" and all its institutions. In this sense, The Radical Therapist was similar to The Insurgent Sociologist, Science for the People, Radical Teacher, and other publications that targeted various groups of professionals whose political spectrum included left-leaning, radical, and revolutionary-minded activists. During its time in Minot, the journal was typeset and published locally, and mailed out via a collective effort. The journal printed articles critiquing the therapy "establishment" and its practice and outlining a "radical" approach to the ways therapy could be used instead. It enthusiastically promoted women's liberation and gay liberation, and critically examined how therapy ideology and practice were alleged to contribute to sexist and homophobic


id: the-radical-therapist-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist-2.md
category: reference
title: The Radical Therapist
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:30.684198+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-radical-therapist-20260505-0
summary:
== The Somerville Years: The Radical Therapist becomes Rough Times == The new Radical Therapist Collective that formed in Somerville in the late summer of 1971 included Michael Glenn, Sara Snow (Glenn) and Debbie Levitt from the Minot group, as well as Michael Galan, who continued to handle the business aspects of the journal. Phil Brown, who had been active in Psychologists for a Democratic Society, and who had enthusiastically worked with the journal since its inception, moved from New York to join the collective that summer; so did Nancy Henley, an activist feminist psychologist from Baltimore. Other new members joined the Somerville collective over the next few months. These included the therapists John Bayliss, Cynthia Ganung, and Chuck Robinson; as well as Anne Mine, Christine Nozchese and Laurin Pensel. After publishing the first Somerville issue (Volume Two, Number 2) the third issue was entirely devoted to articles from the Radical Psychiatry movement in Berkeley, California—including a number of articles by Claude Steiner, Hogie Wyckoff, and Dot Vance. By the winter of 1971, sharp political struggle had broken out in the collective over issues of elitism and professionalism. Some members raised questions as to whether therapists really had any skills


id: the-radical-therapist-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist-3.md
category: reference
title: The Radical Therapist
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Radical_Therapist
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:30.684198+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-radical-therapist-20260505-0
summary:
== The new direction continues: Rough Times which later became State and Mind == By the time Volume Three, Number 1 of Rough Times formerly The Radical Therapist came out in December 1972, the collective had contracted down to a few people. An "RT Position Paper" laid out the staff's evolved position: support for worldwide socialist revolution; belief in the exploitation of labor as today's primary cause of people's oppression; support for all just liberation struggles; deep involvement in and support for the mental health/self-help struggle; belief that the psychological/psychiatric establishment per se is a tool of oppression and that mental illness is a myth; demands for an end to abuses of mental patients; dedication to a search for new, liberating ways of helping people in emotional pain; and at the same time an openness to working with therapy professionals who could identify with the interests of the people. Rough Times continued on for several more years, continuing to contain sections such as "Unmasking the Enemy", "Mental Hospitals", and "On the Move". It reported on the struggles of mental patients for their rights and against all forms of abusive treatment. And it continued to support movements for liberation—for women, gays,


id: re-evaluation-counseling-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-evaluation_counseling-0.md
category: reference
title: Re-evaluation counseling
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-evaluation_counseling
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:31.817047+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: re-evaluation-counseling-20260505-0
summary:
Re-evaluation counseling (RC) is a business, and a network of peer counseling. Its core philosophy prescribes regularly relating painful memories to a peer counsel or group and releasing strong feelings by crying, shaking, or laughing as the best salve for psychological wounds. This idea was first developed in the 1950s by L. Ron Hubbard and called Dianetics (later Scientology). Re-evaluation counseling recruits members by branding itself as a peer-based counseling procedure trying to help people and bring about social reform. In the early 1970s Personal Counselors, Inc, established the Re-evaluation Counseling Community, made up of local groups of people called "Co-Counselors" in Seattle and beyond, based until 2021 in Seattle, Washington, and currently in Shoreline, Washington. It was led by Harvey Jackins until his death in 1999. It is currently led by his son Tim Jackins. == History == In the early 1950s Harvey Jackins associated with L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology) and others interested in Dianetics (what later became Scientology). This led Jackins to establish Personal Counselors Inc. which aimed to "engage in, conduct and teach the art and science of Dianetics." RC reports that collaboration between Jackins and Hubbard became unworkable, and Jackins ended their association


id: rhetoric-of-therapy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_of_therapy-0.md
category: reference
title: Rhetoric of therapy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric_of_therapy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:33.039068+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rhetoric-of-therapy-20260505-0
summary:
Rhetoric of therapy is a concept coined by American academic Dana L. Cloud to describe "a set of political and cultural discourses that have adopted psychotherapy's lexicon—the conservative language of healing, coping, adaptation, and restoration of previously existing order—but in contexts of social and political conflict". Cloud argued that the rhetoric of therapy encourages people to focus on themselves and their private lives rather than attempt to reform flawed systems of social and political power. This form of persuasion is primarily used by politicians, managers, journalists and entertainers as a way to cope with the crisis of the American Dream. Cloud said "the discursive pattern of translating social and political problems into the language of individual responsibility and healing is a rhetoric because of its powerful persuasive force", and it is rhetoric of "therapy" because "of its focus on the personal life of the individual as locus of both problem and responsibility for change". == Functions == The rhetoric of therapy has two functions, according to Cloud: (1) to exhort conformity with the prevailing social order and (2) to encourage identification with therapeutic values: individualism, familism, self-help, and self-absorption. It is directed towards individuals who cope with unemployment, family stress,


id: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment-0.md
category: reference
title: Rosenhan experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:34.179629+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
The Rosenhan experiment or Thud experiment was a disputed study regarding the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. For the experiment, participants submitted themselves for evaluation at various psychiatric institutions and feigned hallucinations in order to be accepted, but acted normally from then onward. Each was diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and given antipsychotic medication. The study was arranged by psychologist David Rosenhan, a Stanford University professor, and published by the journal Science in 1973 with the title On Being Sane In Insane Places. As a critique of psychiatric diagnosis, it broached the topic of wrongful involuntary commitment. The experiment is said to have "accelerated the movement to reform mental institutions and to deinstitutionalize as many mental patients as possible". Rosenhan claimed that he, along with eight other people (five men and three women), entered 12 hospitals in five states on both coasts of the US. Three of the participants were admitted for only a brief period of time, and in order to obtain sufficient documented experiences, they re-applied to additional institutions. Respondents defended psychiatry against the experiment's conclusions, saying that as psychiatric diagnosis relies largely on the patient's report of their experiences, faking their presence no more demonstrates problems with psychiatric


id: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment-1.md
category: reference
title: Rosenhan experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:34.179629+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
== Pseudopatient experiment == While listening to a lecture by Ronald D. Laing, a psychiatrist associated with anti-psychiatry claims, Rosenhan conceived of the experiment as a way to test the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses. The study concluded "it is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospitals" and also illustrated the dangers of dehumanization and suggestion in psychiatric institutions. It suggested that the use of community mental health facilities which concentrated on specific problems and behaviors rather than psychiatric terminology might be a solution, and recommended education to make psychiatric workers more aware of the social psychology of their facilities. Rosenhan himself and seven mentally healthy associates, termed "pseudopatients", attempted to gain admission to psychiatric hospitals by telephoning for an appointment and feigning auditory hallucinations. The hospital staff were not informed of the experiment. The pseudopatients included a psychology graduate student aged in his twenties, three psychologists, a pediatrician, a psychiatrist, a painter, and a housewife. None had a history of mental illness. Pseudopatients used pseudonyms, and those who were mental health professionals were given false jobs in a different sector to avoid invoking any special treatment or scrutiny. Apart from giving false names and


id: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment-2.md
category: reference
title: Rosenhan experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:34.179629+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
Rosenhan published his findings in Science, in which he criticized the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis and the disempowering and demeaning nature of patient care experienced by the associates during the study. Additionally, he described his work in a variety of news appearances, including to the BBC:I told friends, I told my family: "I can get out when I can get out. That's all. I'll be there for a couple of days and I'll get out." Nobody knew I'd be there for two months ... The only way out was to point out that they're [the psychiatrists are] correct. They had said I was insane, "I am insane; but I am getting better." That was an affirmation of their view of me. The experiment is said to have "accelerated the movement to reform mental institutions and to deinstitutionalize as many mental patients as possible". === Criticisms === Many respondents to the publication defended psychiatry, saying that as psychiatric diagnosis relies largely on the patient's report of their experiences, faking their presence no more demonstrates problems with psychiatric diagnosis than lying about other medical symptoms. In this vein, psychiatrist Robert Spitzer quoted Seymour S. Kety in a 1975 criticism of Rosenhan's study:


id: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment-3.md
category: reference
title: Rosenhan experiment
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:34.179629+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: rosenhan-experiment-20260505-0
summary:
== Related experiments == In 1887, American investigative journalist Nellie Bly feigned symptoms of mental illness to gain admission to a lunatic asylum and report on the terrible conditions therein. The results were published as Ten Days in a Mad-House. In 1968, Maurice K. Temerlin split 25 psychiatrists into two groups and had them listen to an actor portraying a character of normal mental health. One group was told that the actor "was a very interesting man because he looked neurotic, but actually was quite psychotic" while the other was told nothing. Sixty percent of the former group diagnosed psychoses, most often schizophrenia, while none of the control group did so. In 1988, Loring and Powell gave 290 psychiatrists a transcript of a patient interview and told half of them that the patient was black and the other half white; they concluded of the results that "clinicians appear to ascribe violence, suspiciousness, and dangerousness to black clients even though the case studies are the same as the case studies for the white clients." In 2004, psychologist Lauren Slater claimed to have performed an experiment very similar to Rosenhan's for her book Opening Skinner's Box. Slater wrote that she had presented


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-0.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Since the founding of the Church of Scientology in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard, the relationship between Scientology and psychiatry has been dominated by strong opposition by the organization against the medical specialty of psychiatry and of psychology, with themes relating to this opposition occurring repeatedly throughout Scientology literature and doctrine. According to the Church of Scientology, psychiatry has a long history of improper and abusive care. The group's views have been disputed, criticized, and condemned by experts in the medical and scientific community and have been a source of public controversy. L. Ron Hubbard had a complex and changing relationship with psychiatry. He recalled positive experiences with psychiatrists in his youth and requested psychiatric treatment in adulthood. By 1948, Hubbard claimed to volunteer in a psychiatric clinic and two years later published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. In 1951, however, Hubbard's wife Sara Northrup Hollister reportedly consulted psychiatrists who recommended Hubbard be institutionalized; thereafter, Hubbard was increasingly hostile towards psychiatry. In 1995, Scientologist Lisa McPherson died at Church of Scientology Flag Service Organization (FSO) at Flag Land Base after leaving a hospital where she was forced to refuse psychiatric treatment. In 2003, a man with untreated schizophrenia


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-1.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
==== Joseph Cheesman Thompson ==== In 1923, L. Ron Hubbard met fellow passenger Joseph "Snake" Thompson, a Navy medical officer and psychoanalyst, on a voyage from Seattle to Washington D.C. via the Panama Canal. In 1958 Hubbard recounted meeting Thompson, "I traveled with Commander Thompson from Seattle, Washington through the Panama Canal to Washington, D.C., when I was about twelve and knew him during all that time that I was in Washington and later." Hubbard recalled that "[Thompson's] friends called him 'Snake' and his enemies called him 'Crazy'. He had lots of both." Hubbard shared anecdotes from his life, and considered Thompson to be a "very great man" who sparked Hubbard's interest in the human mind. Hubbard said that Thompson told him, "If it's not true for you, it's not true." Hubbard recalled that "I was just a kid and Commander Thompson didn't have any boy of his own, and he and I just got along fine." Hubbard continued "Why he [Thompson] took it into his head to start beating Freud into my head, I don't know. But he did." In 1953, Hubbard argued "It's very odd to realize, as I did one day, that in subsequent years I have


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-2.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
there's a place by the name of Walnut Lodge. I... I... They don't see anything humorous in that, by the way; it's Walnut Lodge. [...] They... they... they sent three people to see, to... to see me and every one of them was under treatment. And this was their staff. But anyway, very good people there, I'm sure, didn't happen to meet any. Have some fine patients though. Anyway, they... they treat only schizophrenia. And so they take only schizophrenics. Now how do they get only schizophrenics? Well, anybody sent to Walnut Lodge is a classified schizophrenic. And they take somebody who is a dementia praecox unclassified or a more modern definition, a mania-depressive and they take him from Saint Elizabeth's and they take him over to Walnut Lodge and he goes onto the books as a schizophrenic. Why? Because Walnut Lodge takes only schizophrenics. In 1966, Hubbard recalled "Identification by classification. This is a type of thing Psychiatry does all the time. They say this is a Dementia Praecox case. They've gotten so idiotic with it now that if someboy goes to Chestnut Lodge... if a person is transferred to Chestnut Lodge, regardless of their symptoms before, they now


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-3.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
==== Dianetics ==== In January 1949, Hubbard wrote that he was working on a "book of psychology" about "the cause and cure of nervous tension", which he was going to call The Dark Sword, Excalibur or Science of the Mind. In April 1949, Hubbard wrote from Savannah to inform the Gerontological Society at Baltimore City Hospital that he was preparing a paper entitled Certain Discoveries and Researches Leading to the Removal of Early Traumatic Experiences Including Attempted Abortion, Birth Shock and Infant Illnesses and Accidents with an Examination of their Effects Physiological and Psychological and their Potential Influence on Longevity on the Adult Individual with an Account of the Techniques Evolved and Employed. The Society apparently declined involvement. He also wrote to the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association. These letters, and their responses, have not been published, though Hubbard later said that they had been negative. Hubbard later wrote, "In 1948 I wrote a thesis on an elementary technique of application and submitted it to the medical and psychiatric professions for their use or consideration. The data was not utilized." In December 1949, Hubbard composed a letter to publisher John Campbell in which he provided an article


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-4.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Two decades later, in 1972, Hubbard would write to followers: the NY Times Literary Section began an attack and a lot of violent track ran by which included DR. MEYER-ZELIG, a psychiatrist in San Francisco master-minding a kidnapping of me to fly me to St. Louis and be put away. His (Zelig's) plans miscarried. MILES HOLLISTER, formerly a psych student, got hold of SARA NORTHRUP (really Komknoidominoff) (or ov) and handed her over to Zelig who put her in deep hypnosis, fixated her on the idea I was trying to kill her and spun her in, in which state she has remained since. This caused the final destruction of the HDRF (Hubbard Dianetic Research Foundation) as national press only played up her divorce. ==== Hubbard kidnaps wife, daughter ==== On the night of February 24, 1951, Hubbard allegedly took daughter Alexis while Sara was at a movie theater. A few hours later, he returned with two of his Dianetics Foundation staff and told Sara, who was now back at her apartment: "We have Alexis and you'll never see her alive unless you come with us." She was bundled into the back of a car and driven to San Bernardino, California,


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-5.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
We discover psychoanalysis to have been superseded by tyrannous sadism, practiced by unprincipled men, themselves evidently in the last stages of dementia. This, then, is the end of the trail for psychoanalysis—a world of failure and brutality. Today men who call themselves analysts are merrily sawing out patients' brains, shocking them with murderous drugs, striking them with high voltages, burying them underneath mounds of ice, placing them in restraints, "sterilizing" them sexually and generally conducting themselves much as their patients would were they given the chance. It is up to us to realize, then, that psychoanalysis in its pure practice is dead the moment the spirit of humanity in which Freud developed the work is betrayed by the handing over of a patient to the merciless misconduct which passes today for treatment. In 1957, Hubbard founded the "National Academy of American Psychology" which sought to issue a "loyalty oath" to psychologists and psychiatrists. Those who opposed the oath were to be labelled "Subversive" psychiatrists, while those who merely refused to sign the oath would be labelled "Potentially Subversive". In 1958, Hubbard wrote that "Destroy is the same as help to a psychiatrist". His 1958 writings cited "Psychiatry: The Greatest Flub


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-6.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Today, there are 500 Dianeticists and Scientologists to every psychiatrist [...] while Scientology is more visible than ever, with churches dotting every continent on Earth and millions of parishioners around the world, one is hard pressed to find even a single psychiatrist with a shingle on his door. Scientology claims a worldwide membership of more than 8 million, the total of people who have taken the Scientology introductory course. The Church of Scientology claims 3.5 million members in the United States, though an independent survey has found the number of people in the United States would state their religion as 'Scientology' is close to 55,000. By comparison, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association, which are composed of psychiatrists and psychologists, have 38,000 and 148,000 members respectively. Mental health professionals are not concerned that the public will take Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) materials seriously, because of the organization's connection with the Church of Scientology; however, they argue that these materials can have a harmful impact when quoted without attribution. Except for court trials and media publications and public rallies, published materials have received little notice outside of Scientology and CCHR; of reviews available, few are favorable.


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-7.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
Tom Cruise has been highly vocal in attacking the use of psychiatric medication, gaining particular attention for becoming extremely animated on the subject during an interview on Today on June 25, 2005. His position has attracted considerable criticism from psychiatrists and other physicians (American Psychiatric Association and National Mental Health Association), and individuals suffering from depression. In January 2004, Cruise made the controversial statement "I think psychiatry should be outlawed." Further controversy erupted in 2005 after he openly criticized actress Brooke Shields for using the drug Paxil (paroxetine), an anti-depressant to which Shields attributes her recovery from postpartum depression after the birth of her first daughter in 2003. Cruise asserted that there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance and that psychiatry is a form of pseudoscience. Shields responded that Cruise "should stick to saving the world from aliens and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them". This led to a heated argument between Matt Lauer and Cruise on NBC's Today on June 24, 2005. Medical authorities view Cruise's comments as furthering the social stigma of mental illness. Shields herself called Cruise's comments "a disservice to mothers everywhere". In late August


id: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry-8.md
category: reference
title: Scientology and psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_and_psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:35.431233+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: scientology-and-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
I saw the handwritten notes, gave a cursory look to see if the summary—see if they matched and matched, and I threw the handwritten reports in my shred basket, and I had the report, kept the report. McPherson's "care logs" narrate the last seventeen days of her life: she was incoherent and sometimes violent, her nails were cut so she would not scratch herself or the staff, she bruised her fists and feet while hitting the wall. She had trouble sleeping and was being given natural supplements and the drug chloral hydrate to help her sleep. A Church staffer noted that McPherson "looked ill like measles or chicken pox on her face." On repeated occasions she refused food and protein shakes that the staff offered. On November 26 and 30 and December 3 to 4, the staff attempted to force feed her, noting that she spat the food out. She was noted to be very weak, not standing up nor on some days moving at all. Scientologists who questioned this handling were told to "butt out". On December 5, 1995, Church staffers contacted David Minkoff, a Scientologist medical doctor who twice prescribed McPherson Valium and chloral hydrate without examining her.


id: the-self-and-others-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Self_and_Others-0.md
category: reference
title: The Self and Others
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Self_and_Others
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:36.584223+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-self-and-others-20260505-0
summary:
The Self and Others is a psychological study by R. D. Laing, first published in 1961 by the Tavistock Institute. It was re-issued in a second edition (1969), which (in Laing's words) was “extensively revised, without being changed in any fundamental way”. The book was presented as "a study of persona relations in situations of extremity". The book formed part of a series of writings by Laing in the 1960s on the relationship of madness to the self within a social context or nexus, writings which created something of a cult of Laing at the time. == Structure == Self and Others is divided into two parts, called respectively 'Modes of Interpersonal Experience' and 'Forms of Interpersonal Action'. In the first part, Laing sets out from a critique of the Kleinian view of unconscious phantasy, as set out by Susan Sutherland Isaacs, for its lack of recognition of the interpersonal dialectics inherent in human experience. He also uses Kleinian thought to emphasize the omnipresence of social phantasy systems. In the second part, Laing explored the extent to which an individual is or is not invested in their own actions, using ideas drawn from Martin Buber and Jean-Paul Sartre. He also


id: socialist-patients-collective-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Patients'_Collective-0.md
category: reference
title: Socialist Patients' Collective
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Patients'_Collective
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:37.752644+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: socialist-patients-collective-20260505-0
summary:
The Socialist Patients' Collective (German: Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv, and known as the SPK) is a patients' collective founded in Heidelberg, West Germany, in February 1970 by Wolfgang Huber. The kernel of the SPK's ideological program is summated in the slogan, "Turn illness into a weapon", which is representative of an ethos that is continually and actively practiced under the new title, Patients' Front/Socialist Patients' Collective, PF/SPK(H). The first collective, SPK, declared its self-dissolution in July 1971 as a strategic withdrawal but in 1973 Huber proclaimed the continuity of SPK as Patients' Front. The SPK assumes that illness exists as an undeniable fact and believe that it is caused by the capitalist system. The SPK promotes illness as the protest against capitalism and considers illness as the foundation on which to create the human species. The SPK is opposed to doctors, considering them to be the ruling class of capitalism and responsible for poisoning the human species. The most widely recognized text of the PF/SPK(H) is the communique, SPK – Turn illness into a weapon, which has prefaces by both the founder of the SPK, Wolfgang Huber, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Rejecting the roles and ideology associated with the notion of the revolutionary


id: socialist-patients-collective-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Patients'_Collective-1.md
category: reference
title: Socialist Patients' Collective
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Patients'_Collective
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:37.752644+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: socialist-patients-collective-20260505-0
summary:
== Interest and influence == Discussion of the SPK in both German-language and English-language written sources increased during the 1970s, fell during the 1980s, and rose again during the 1990s. Artistic projects that have cited the group include SPK, an industrial music and noise music group in Australia, founded in 1978 and dissolved in 1988, which was named after the collective. == See also == Occupational burnout Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? West German Embassy siege in Stockholm == References == == Further reading == Book: Wolfgang Huber, Socialist Patients' Collective/Patient's Front SPK/PF(H). SPK: Turn Illness into a Weapon. KRRIM - PF-Verlag für Krankheit, Heidelberg, 2002. ISBN 978-3-926491-17-6 Book: Wolfgang Huber, Sozialistisches Patientenkollektiv/Patientenfront, SPK/PF(H): SPK - Aus der Krankheit eine Waffe machen (6. erweiterte Aufl). Eine Agitationsschrift des Sozialistischen Patientenkollektiv an der Universität Heidelberg. Mit einem Vorwort von Jean-Paul Sartre und einer Zeittafel von den Anfängen ('65 ff) bis heute; Ausschnitt aus einer Rundfunksendung: Aus Krankheit stark Patientenfront. KRRIM - PF-Verlag für Krankheit, 1995. ISBN 978-3-926491-25-1. Christian Pross, Sonja Schweitzer und Julia Wagner. Wir wollten ins Verderben rennen – die Geschichte des sozialistischen Patientenkollektivs Heidelberg 1970-1971. Unter Mitarbeit von Sonja Schweitzer und Julia Wagner, gefördert durch die Hamburger Stiftung


id: soteria-psychiatric-treatment-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soteria_(psychiatric_treatment)-0.md
category: reference
title: Soteria (psychiatric treatment)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soteria_(psychiatric_treatment)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:38.960685+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: soteria-psychiatric-treatment-20260505-0
summary:
The Soteria model is a milieu-therapeutic approach developed to treat acute schizophrenia, usually implemented in Soteria houses. Based on a recovery model, the common elements of the Soteria approach include the use of primarily nonmedical staff, who do not prescribe or administer antipsychotic medication to patients, and the preservation of residents' personal power, social networks, and communal responsibilities. Soteria houses provide a community space for people experiencing mental distress or crisis and have no restraint facilities. Loren Mosher, founder of the first Soteria house, believed that people with schizophrenia did, in fact, recover from the illness without the use of neuroleptics in a supportive home-like environment. Soteria houses are often seen as gentler alternatives to the psychiatric hospital system, which is perceived as authoritarian, hostile, or violent, and overly reliant on the use of psychiatric (particularly antipsychotic) drugs. Some psychiatrists contest the Soteria model's validity due to a perception that it diverges from the controversial biopsychosocial model, as well as research quality concerns. == Etymology and mythological origin == The term Soteria derives from the Ancient Greek word σωτηρία (sōtēria), meaning "deliverance," "preservation," or "salvation." In Greek mythology, Soteria was the personification of safety, protection, and deliverance from harm. She


id: starson-v-swayze-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starson_v_Swayze-0.md
category: reference
title: Starson v Swayze
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starson_v_Swayze
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:40.111744+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: starson-v-swayze-20260505-0
summary:
Starson v Swayze, 2003 SCC 32, [2003] 1 S.C.R. 722 was an important case at the Supreme Court of Canada that considered the legal requirements for determining if a person is capable of making decisions regarding their medical treatment. On December 24, 1998, Dr. Ian Gary Swayze declared Professor Starson (a.k.a. Scott Jeffery Schutzman) incapable of consenting to proposed psychiatric treatment and should therefore be involuntarily medicated as directed. Starson applied to a legal body known as the Consent and Capacity Board for a review of this decision. On June 6, 2003, the Supreme Court of Canada published its decision in the case. In a 6 to 3 decision, the majority held that Starson had the right to refuse medication. == Background == Scott Jeffery Schutzman, who changed his name to Starson and preferred to be called "Professor", obtained an electrical engineering degree and held a strong interest in physics (although it was not his profession). He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He appreciated that he was not 'normal' and that he had problems dealing with people. He acknowledged that he had mental health issues, but he refused to accept his condition as an illness. He also refused to consent


id: titicut-follies-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies-0.md
category: reference
title: Titicut Follies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:41.305116+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: titicut-follies-20260505-0
summary:
Titicut Follies is a 1967 American direct cinema documentary film produced, written, and directed by Frederick Wiseman and filmed by John Marshall. It deals with the patient-inmates of Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, a Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. The title is taken from that of a talent show put on by the hospital staff. Titicut is the Wampanoag name for the nearby Taunton River. The film won accolades in Germany and Italy. Wiseman went on to produce many more such films examining social institutions (e.g. hospitals, police, schools, etc.) in the United States. In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". == Synopsis == Titicut Follies portrays the occupants of Bridgewater State Hospital, who were often kept in barren cells and infrequently bathed. It also depicts inmates/patients required to strip naked publicly, force feeding, and the indifference and bullying by many of the hospital's staff. The film employs methods of direct cinema, which emphasizes observation, limited stylization, and non-intervention by filmmakers. == Production == === Development === Titicut Follies was the beginning of the documentary career of


id: titicut-follies-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies-1.md
category: reference
title: Titicut Follies
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titicut_Follies
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:41.305116+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: titicut-follies-20260505-0
summary:
=== Censorship === Just before the film was to be shown at the 1967 New York Film Festival, the Massachusetts government tried to procure an injunction banning its release, claiming that the film violated the patients' privacy and dignity. Despite Wiseman having received permission from all the people portrayed or that of the hospital superintendent (the inmates' legal guardian), Massachusetts claimed that this permission could not take the place of release forms from the inmates. Wiseman was also accused of breaching an "oral contract", giving the state government editorial control over the film. A New York state court allowed the screening, but in 1968, Massachusetts Superior Court judge Harry Kalus ordered the film to be recalled from distribution and all copies destroyed, once more citing the state's concerns about violations of the patients' privacy and dignity. Wiseman appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which in 1969 allowed it to be shown only to doctors, lawyers, judges, health-care professionals, social workers, and students in these and related fields. Wiseman appealed to the United States Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case. Wiseman believes that the government of Massachusetts (concerned that the film portrayed a state institution in a bad


id: trauma-model-of-mental-disorders-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_model_of_mental_disorders-0.md
category: reference
title: Trauma model of mental disorders
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_model_of_mental_disorders
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:42.460921+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: trauma-model-of-mental-disorders-20260505-0
summary:
The trauma model of mental disorders, or trauma model of psychopathology, emphasises the effects of physical, sexual and psychological trauma as key causal factors in the development of psychiatric disorders, including depression and anxiety as well as psychosis, whether the trauma is experienced in childhood or adulthood. It conceptualises people as having understandable reactions to traumatic events rather than suffering from mental illness. Trauma models emphasise that traumatic experiences are more common and more significant in terms of aetiology than has often been thought in people diagnosed with mental disorders. Such models have their roots in some psychoanalytic approaches, notably Sigmund Freud's early ideas on childhood sexual abuse and hysteria, Pierre Janet's work on dissociation, and John Bowlby's attachment theory. There is significant research supporting the linkage between early experiences of chronic maltreatment and severe neglect and later psychological problems. In the 1960s, trauma models became associated with humanist and anti-psychiatry approaches, particularly regarding understanding schizophrenia and the role of the family. Personality disorders have also been a focus, particularly borderline personality disorder, with the role of dissociation and 'freezing responses' (more extreme reactions than fight-flight when someone is terrified and traumatised) thought to have a significant role in the


id: trauma-model-of-mental-disorders-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_model_of_mental_disorders-1.md
category: reference
title: Trauma model of mental disorders
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trauma_model_of_mental_disorders
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:42.460921+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: trauma-model-of-mental-disorders-20260505-0
summary:
== Recent approaches == A 2005 meta-analysis of schizophrenia revealed that the prevalence of physical and sexual abuse in the histories of people diagnosed with psychotic disorders is very high and has been understudied. This literature review revealed prevalence rates of childhood sexual abuse in studies of people diagnosed with schizophrenia ranging from 45% to 65%. An analysis of the American National Comorbidity Study revealed that people who have endured three kinds of abuse (e.g., sexual, physical, and bullying) are at an 18-fold higher risk of psychosis. In contrast, those experiencing five types are 193 times more likely to become psychotic. A 2012 review article supported the hypothesis that current or recent trauma may affect an individual's assessment of the more distant past, changing the experience of the past and resulting in dissociative states. Several reviews of risk factors for common mental disorders have emphasised trauma. Such research has rejuvenated interest in this field, from clinicians, researchers and service user organisations such as the Hearing Voices Movement. Psychiatrist Colin Ross calls his model the "trauma model of mental disorders" and emphasises that, unlike biological models, this addresses the literature on comorbidity of trauma with mental disorders. Ross describes the theoretical


id: world-network-of-users-and-survivors-of-psychiatry-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Network_of_Users_and_Survivors_of_Psychiatry-0.md
category: reference
title: World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Network_of_Users_and_Survivors_of_Psychiatry
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:43.646749+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: world-network-of-users-and-survivors-of-psychiatry-20260505-0
summary:
The World Network of Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (WNUSP) is an international organisation representing, and led by what it terms "survivors of psychiatry". As of 2003, over 70 national organizations were members of WNUSP, based in 30 countries. The network seeks to protect and develop the human rights, disability rights, dignity and self-determination of those labeled 'mentally ill'. == Activities == WNUSP has special consultative status with the United Nations. It contributed to the development of the UN's Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. WNUSP has produced a manual to help people use it entitled "Implementation Manual for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities", edited by Myra Kovary. WNUSP joined with other organizations to create the International Disability Caucus, which jointly represented organizations of people with disabilities and allies during the CRPD negotiations. WNUSP was part of the steering committee of the IDC, which maintained a principle of respecting the leadership of diverse constituencies on issues affecting them, and also maintained that the convention should be of equal value to all persons with disabilities irrespective of the type of disability or geographical location. Tina Minkowitz, WNUSP's representative on the IDC steering committee,


id: intelligent-design-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-0.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
Intelligent design (ID) is a pseudoscientific argument for the existence of God, presented by its proponents as "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins". The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a Christian, politically conservative think tank based in the United States. ID is a form of creationism that lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses, and is therefore not science. Although the phrase intelligent design had featured previously in theological discussions of the argument from design, its first publication in its present use as an alternative term for creationism was in Of Pandas and People, a 1989 creationist textbook intended for high school biology classes. In 1987, the Edwards v. Aguillard United States Supreme Court decision ruled that "creation science" is not science, and therefore a violation of the Establishment Clause if taught in public school biology classes. After the decision, all mentions of the term "creation science" in the textbook were directly replaced by "intelligent design", and mentions of the term "creation scientists" were replaced by "design proponents". From the mid-1990s onward, the intelligent design movement (IDM), supported by the Discovery Institute, advocated for the inclusion of intelligent design in public


id: intelligent-design-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-1.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
In 1910, evolution was not a topic of major religious controversy in America, but in the 1920s, the fundamentalist–modernist controversy in theology resulted in fundamentalist Christian opposition to teaching evolution and resulted in the origins of modern creationism. As a result, teaching of evolution was effectively suspended in US public schools until the 1960s, and when evolution was then reintroduced into the curriculum, there was a series of court cases in which attempts were made to get creationism taught alongside evolution in science classes. Young Earth creationists (YECs) promoted creation science as "an alternative scientific explanation of the world in which we live". This frequently invoked the argument from design to explain complexity in nature as supposedly demonstrating the existence of God. The argument from design, also known as the teleological argument or "argument from intelligent design", has been presented by theologians for centuries. Thomas Aquinas presented ID in his fifth proof of God's existence as a syllogism. In 1802, William Paley's Natural Theology presented examples of intricate purpose in organisms. His version of the watchmaker analogy argued that a watch has evidently been designed by a craftsman and that it is just as evident that the complexity and adaptation


id: intelligent-design-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-2.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
The most common modern use of the words "intelligent design" as a term intended to describe a field of inquiry began after the United States Supreme Court ruled in June 1987 in the case of Edwards v. Aguillard that it is unconstitutional for a state to require the teaching of creationism in public school science curricula. A Discovery Institute report says that Charles B. Thaxton, editor of Pandas, had picked the phrase up from a NASA scientist. In two successive 1987 drafts of the book, over one hundred uses of the root word "creation", such as "creationism" and "Creation Science", were changed, almost without exception, to "intelligent design", while "creationists" was changed to "design proponents" or, in one instance, "cdesign proponentsists" [sic]. In June 1988, Thaxton held a conference titled "Sources of Information Content in DNA" in Tacoma, Washington. Stephen C. Meyer was at the conference, and later recalled that "The term intelligent design came up..." In December 1988 Thaxton decided to use the label "intelligent design" for his new creationist movement. Of Pandas and People was published in 1989, and in addition to including all the current arguments for ID, was the first book to make systematic use of


id: intelligent-design-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-3.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
Dembski defines complex specified information (CSI) as anything with a less than 1 in 10150 chance of occurring by (natural) chance. Critics say that this renders the argument a tautology: complex specified information cannot occur naturally because Dembski has defined it thus, so the real question becomes whether or not CSI actually exists in nature. The conceptual soundness of Dembski's specified complexity/CSI argument has been discredited in the scientific and mathematical communities. Specified complexity has yet to be shown to have wide applications in other fields, as Dembski asserts. John Wilkins and Wesley R. Elsberry characterize Dembski's "explanatory filter" as eliminative because it eliminates explanations sequentially: first regularity, then chance, finally defaulting to design. They argue that this procedure is flawed as a model for scientific inference because the asymmetric way it treats the different possible explanations renders it prone to making false conclusions. Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist and religion critic, argues in The God Delusion (2006) that allowing for an intelligent designer to account for unlikely complexity only postpones the problem, as such a designer would need to be at least as complex. Other scientists have argued that evolution through selection is better able to explain the observed complexity,


id: intelligent-design-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-4.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
The contemporary intelligent design movement formulates its arguments in secular terms and intentionally avoids identifying the intelligent agent (or agents) they posit. Although they do not state that God is the designer, the designer is often implicitly hypothesized to have intervened in a way that only a god could intervene. Dembski, in The Design Inference (1998), speculates that an alien culture could fulfill these requirements. Of Pandas and People proposes that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence illustrates an appeal to intelligent design in science. In 2000, philosopher of science Robert T. Pennock suggested the Raëlian UFO religion as a real-life example of an extraterrestrial intelligent designer view that "make[s] many of the same bad arguments against evolutionary theory as creationists". Beyond the debate over whether intelligent design is scientific, a number of critics argue that existing evidence makes the design hypothesis appear unlikely, irrespective of its status in the world of science. For example, Jerry Coyne asks why a designer would "give us a pathway for making vitamin C, but then destroy it by disabling one of its enzymes" (see pseudogene) and why a designer would not "stock oceanic islands with reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and freshwater fish, despite the suitability


id: intelligent-design-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-5.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
The intelligent design movement is a direct outgrowth of the creationism of the 1980s. The scientific and academic communities, along with a US federal court, view intelligent design as either a form of creationism or as a direct descendant that is closely intertwined with traditional creationism; and several authors explicitly refer to it as "intelligent design creationism". The movement is headquartered in the Center for Science and Culture, established in 1996 as the creationist wing of the Discovery Institute to promote a religious agenda calling for broad social, academic and political changes. The Discovery Institute's intelligent design campaigns have been staged primarily in the United States, although efforts have been made in other countries to promote intelligent design. Leaders of the movement say intelligent design exposes the limitations of scientific orthodoxy and of the secular philosophy of naturalism. Intelligent design proponents allege that science should not be limited to naturalism and should not demand the adoption of a naturalistic philosophy that dismisses out-of-hand any explanation that includes a supernatural cause. The overall goal of the movement is to "reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview" represented by the theory of evolution in favor of "a science consonant with Christian


id: intelligent-design-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-6.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
=== Reaction from other creationist groups === Not all creationist organizations have embraced the intelligent design movement. According to Thomas Dixon, "Religious leaders have come out against ID too. An open letter affirming the compatibility of Christian faith and the teaching of evolution, first produced in response to controversies in Wisconsin in 2004, has now been signed by over ten thousand clergy from different Christian denominations across America." Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe, a proponent of Old Earth creationism, believes that the efforts of intelligent design proponents to divorce the concept from Biblical Christianity make its hypothesis too vague. In 2002, he wrote: "Winning the argument for design without identifying the designer yields, at best, a sketchy origins model. Such a model makes little if any positive impact on the community of scientists and other scholars. ... the time is right for a direct approach, a single leap into the origins fray. Introducing a biblically based, scientifically verifiable creation model represents such a leap." Likewise, two of the most prominent YEC organizations in the world have attempted to distinguish their views from those of the intelligent design movement. Henry M. Morris of the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) wrote,


id: intelligent-design-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-7.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
=== Polls === Several surveys were conducted prior to the December 2005 decision in Kitzmiller v. Dover School District, which sought to determine the level of support for intelligent design among certain groups. According to a 2005 Harris poll, 10% of adults in the United States viewed human beings as "so complex that they required a powerful force or intelligent being to help create them." Although Zogby polls commissioned by the Discovery Institute show more support, these polls suffer from considerable flaws, such as having a low response rate (248 out of 16,000), being conducted on behalf of an organization with an expressed interest in the outcome of the poll, and containing leading questions. A series of Gallup polls in the United States from 1982 through 2014 on "Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design" found support for "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided the process" of between 31% and 40%, support for "God created human beings in pretty much their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so" varied from 40% to 47%, and support for "human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced


id: intelligent-design-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-8.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
Consistent Parsimonious (sparing in its proposed entities or explanations; see Occam's razor) Useful (describes and explains observed phenomena, and can be used in a predictive manner) Empirically testable and falsifiable (potentially confirmable or disprovable by experiment or observation) Based on multiple observations (often in the form of controlled, repeated experiments) Correctable and dynamic (modified in the light of observations that do not support it) Progressive (refines previous theories) Provisional or tentative (is open to experimental checking, and does not assert certainty) For any theory, hypothesis, or conjecture to be considered scientific, it must meet most, and ideally all, of these criteria. The fewer criteria are met, the less scientific it is; if it meets only a few or none at all, then it cannot be treated as scientific in any meaningful sense of the word. Advocates of intelligent design seek to keep God and the Bible out of the discussion, and present intelligent design in the language of science as though it were a scientific hypothesis; however, the failure to follow the procedures of scientific discourse and the failure to submit work to the scientific community that withstands scrutiny have weighed against intelligent design being accepted as valid science. Some


id: intelligent-design-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-9.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
=== Arguments from ignorance === Eugenie C. Scott, along with Glenn Branch and other critics, has argued that many points raised by intelligent design proponents are arguments from ignorance. In the argument from ignorance, a lack of evidence for one view is erroneously argued to constitute proof of the correctness of another view. Scott and Branch say that intelligent design is an argument from ignorance because it relies on a lack of knowledge for its conclusion: lacking a natural explanation for certain specific aspects of evolution, we assume intelligent cause. They contend most scientists would reply that the unexplained is not unexplainable, and that "we don't know yet" is a more appropriate response than invoking a cause outside science. Particularly, Michael Behe's demands for ever more detailed explanations of the historical evolution of molecular systems seem to assume a false dichotomy, where either evolution or design is the proper explanation, and any perceived failure of evolution becomes a victory for design. Scott and Branch also contend that the supposedly novel contributions proposed by intelligent design proponents have not served as the basis for any productive scientific research. Moreover, philosophical criticism of intelligent design has extended beyond traditional demarcation arguments that


id: intelligent-design-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-10.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
There is a gap in scientific knowledge. The gap is filled with acts of God (or intelligent designer) and therefore proves the existence of God (or intelligent designer). A God-of-the-gaps argument is the theological version of an argument from ignorance. A key feature of this type of argument is that it merely answers outstanding questions with explanations (often supernatural) that are unverifiable and ultimately themselves subject to unanswerable questions. Historians of science observe that the astronomy of the earliest civilizations, although astonishing and incorporating mathematical constructions far in excess of any practical value, proved to be misdirected and of little importance to the development of science because they failed to inquire more carefully into the mechanisms that drove the heavenly bodies across the sky. It was the Greek civilization that first practiced science, although not yet as a formally defined experimental science, but nevertheless an attempt to rationalize the world of natural experience without recourse to divine intervention. In this historically motivated definition of science any appeal to an intelligent creator is explicitly excluded for the paralysing effect it may have on scientific progress. == Legal challenges in the United States == === Kitzmiller trial === Kitzmiller v. Dover Area


id: intelligent-design-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-11.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
=== Anti-evolution legislation === Anti-evolution legislation, such as the Louisiana Science Education Act enacted in 2008, has been presented as supporting academic freedom and open discussion, while critics consider it a thinly disguised attempt at proselytization. In April 2010, the American Academy of Religion issued Guidelines for Teaching About Religion in K–12 Public Schools in the United States, which included guidance that creation science or intelligent design should not be taught in science classes, as "Creation science and intelligent design represent worldviews that fall outside of the realm of science that is defined as (and limited to) a method of inquiry based on gathering observable and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning." However, these worldviews as well as others "that focus on speculation regarding the origins of life represent another important and relevant form of human inquiry that is appropriately studied in literature or social sciences courses. Such study, however, must include a diversity of worldviews representing a variety of religious and philosophical perspectives and must avoid privileging one view as more legitimate than others." == Status outside the United States == === Europe === In June 2007, the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture, Science and Education


id: intelligent-design-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design-12.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:46.509580+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-20260505-0
summary:
=== Australia === The status of intelligent design in Australia is somewhat similar to that in the UK. In 2005, the Australian Minister for Education, Science and Training, Brendan Nelson, raised the notion of intelligent design being taught in science classes. The public outcry caused the minister to quickly concede that the correct forum for intelligent design, if it were to be taught, is in religion or philosophy classes. The Australian chapter of Campus Crusade for Christ distributed a DVD of the Discovery Institute's documentary Unlocking the Mystery of Life (2002) to Australian secondary schools. Tim Hawkes, the head of The King's School, one of Australia's leading private schools, supported use of the DVD in the classroom at the discretion of teachers and principals. === Relation to Islam === Muzaffar Iqbal, a notable Pakistani-Canadian Muslim, signed "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism", a petition from the Discovery Institute. Ideas similar to intelligent design have been considered respected intellectual options among Muslims, and in Turkey many intelligent design books have been translated. In Istanbul in 2007, public meetings promoting intelligent design were sponsored by the local government, and David Berlinski of the Discovery Institute was the keynote speaker at a meeting in


id: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science-0.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:47.753901+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
The relationship between intelligent design and science has been a contentious one. Intelligent design (ID) is presented by its proponents as science and claims to offer an alternative to evolution. The Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank and the leading proponent of intelligent design, launched a campaign entitled "Teach the Controversy", which claims that a controversy exists within the scientific community over evolution. The scientific community rejects intelligent design as a form of creationism, and the basic facts of evolution are not a matter of controversy in science. == "Teach the Controversy" == The intelligent design movement states that there is a debate among scientists about whether life evolved. The movement stresses the importance of recognizing the existence of this supposed debate, seeking to convince the public, politicians, and cultural leaders that schools should "Teach the Controversy". In fact, there is no such controversy in the scientific community; the scientific consensus is that life evolved. Intelligent design is widely viewed as a stalking horse for its proponents' campaign against what they say is the materialist foundation of science, which they argue leaves no room for the possibility of God. == Neo-creationism == Advocates of intelligent design from a Christian


id: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science-1.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:47.753901+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Inter-faith outreach == Supporters of intelligent design have also reached out to other faith groups with similar accounts of creation with the hope that the broader coalition will have greater influence in supporting science education that does not contradict their religious views. Many religious bodies have responded by expressing support for evolution. The Roman Catholic Church has stated that religious faith is fully compatible with science, which is limited to dealing only with the natural world—a position described by the term theistic evolution. While some in the Roman Catholic Church reject Intelligent design for various philosophical and theological reasons, others, such as Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, have shown support for it. The arguments of intelligent design have been directly challenged by the over 10,000 clergy who signed the Clergy Letter Project. Prominent scientists who strongly express religious faith, such as the astronomer George Coyne and the biologist Ken Miller, have been at the forefront of opposition to intelligent design. While creationist organizations have welcomed intelligent design's support against naturalism, they have also been critical of its refusal to identify the designer, and have pointed to previous failures of the same argument. Rabbi Natan Slifkin directly criticized the advocates


id: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science-2.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:47.753901+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Peer review == The failure to follow the procedures of scientific discourse and the failure to submit work to the scientific community that withstands scrutiny have weighed against intelligent design being accepted as valid science. The intelligent design movement has not published a properly peer-reviewed article supporting ID in a scientific journal, and has failed to publish peer-reviewed research or data supporting ID. Intelligent design, by appealing to a supernatural agent, directly conflicts with the principles of science, which limit its inquiries to empirical, observable and ultimately testable data and which require explanations to be based on empirical evidence. Dembski, Behe and other intelligent design proponents say bias by the scientific community is to blame for the failure of their research to be published. Intelligent design proponents believe that their writings are rejected for not conforming to purely naturalistic, non-supernatural mechanisms rather than because their research is not up to "journal standards", and that the merit of their articles is overlooked. Some scientists describe this claim as a conspiracy theory. Michael Shermer has rebutted the claim, noting "Anyone who thinks that scientists do not question Darwinism has never been to an evolutionary conference." He noted that scientists such as


id: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science-3.md
category: reference
title: Intelligent design and science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design_and_science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:47.753901+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: intelligent-design-and-science-20260505-0
summary:
== Intelligence as an observable quality == The phrase intelligent design makes use of an assumption of the quality of an observable intelligence, a concept that has no scientific consensus definition. William Dembski, for example, has written that "Intelligence leaves behind a characteristic signature". The characteristics of intelligence are assumed by intelligent design proponents to be observable without specifying what the criteria for the measurement of intelligence should be. Dembski, instead, asserts that "in special sciences ranging from forensics to archaeology to SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), appeal to a designing intelligence is indispensable". How this appeal is made and what this implies as to the definition of intelligence are topics left largely unaddressed. Seth Shostak, a researcher with the SETI Institute, disputed Dembski's comparison of SETI and intelligent design, saying that intelligent design advocates base their inference of design on complexity—the argument being that some biological systems are too complex to have been made by natural processes—while SETI researchers are looking primarily for artificiality. Critics say that the design detection methods proposed by intelligent design proponents are radically different from conventional design detection, undermining the key elements that make it possible as legitimate science. Intelligent design proponents, they


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-0.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
Irreducible complexity (IC) is the argument that certain biological systems with multiple interacting parts would not function if one of the parts were removed, so supposedly could not have evolved by successive small modifications from earlier less complex systems through natural selection, which would need all intermediate precursor systems to have been fully functional. This negative argument is then complemented by the claim that the only alternative explanation is a "purposeful arrangement of parts" inferring design by an intelligent agent. Irreducible complexity has become central to the creationist concept of intelligent design (ID), but the concept of irreducible complexity has been rejected by the scientific community at large, which regards intelligent design as pseudoscience. Irreducible complexity and specified complexity are the two main arguments used by intelligent-design proponents to support their version of the theological argument from design. The central concept that complex biological systems which require all their parts to function could not evolve by the incremental changes of natural selection, and so must have been produced by an intelligence, was already featured in creation science. The 1989 school textbook Of Pandas and People introduced the alternative terminology of intelligent design, a revised section in the 1993 edition of


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-1.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
==== 19th century ==== Chapter XV of Paley's Natural Theology discusses at length what he called "relations" of parts of living things as an indication of their design. Georges Cuvier applied his principle of the correlation of parts to describe an animal from fragmentary remains. For Cuvier, this related to another principle of his, the conditions of existence, which excluded the possibility of transmutation of species. While he did not originate the term, Charles Darwin identified the argument as a possible way to falsify a prediction of the theory of evolution at the outset. In The Origin of Species (1859), he wrote, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case." Darwin's theory of evolution challenges the teleological argument by postulating an alternative explanation to that of an intelligent designer—namely, evolution by natural selection. By showing how simple unintelligent forces can ratchet up designs of extraordinary complexity without invoking outside design, Darwin showed that an intelligent designer was not the necessary conclusion to draw from complexity in nature. The argument from irreducible complexity


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-2.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Creationism === Versions of the irreducible complexity argument have been common in young Earth creationist (YEC) creation science journals. For example, in the July 1965 issue of Creation Research Society Quarterly Harold W. Clark described the complex interaction in which yucca moths have an "inherited action pattern" or instinct to fertilize plants: "Before the pattern can be inherited, it must be formed. But how could yucca plants mature seeds while waiting for the moths to learn the process and set the pattern? The whole procedure points so strongly to intelligent design that it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the hand of a wise and beneficent Creator has been involved." Similarly, honeybees pollinate apple blossom: "Again we may well ask how such an arrangement could have come about by accident, or how either the flowers or the bees could have survived alone. Intelligent design is again evident." In 1974 the YEC Henry M. Morris introduced an irreducible complexity concept in his creation science book Scientific Creationism, in which he wrote; "The creationist maintains that the degree of complexity and order which science has discovered in the universe could never be generated by chance or accident." He continued; "This


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-3.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Intelligent design === The biology supplementary textbook for schools Of Pandas and People was drafted presenting creation science arguments, but shortly after the Edwards v. Aguillard ruling, that it was unconstitutional to teach creationism in public school science classes, the authors changed the wording to "intelligent design", introducing the new meaning of this term when the book was published in 1989. In a separate response to the same ruling, law professor Phillip E. Johnson wrote Darwin on Trial, published in 1991, and at a conference in March 1992 brought together key figures in what he later called the 'wedge movement', including biochemistry professor Michael Behe. According to Johnson, around 1992 Behe developed his ideas of what he later called his "irreducible complexity" concept, and first presented these ideas in June 1993 when the "Johnson-Behe cadre of scholars" met at Pajaro Dunes in California. The second edition of Of Pandas and People, published in 1993, had extensive revisions to Chapter 6 Biochemical Similarities with new sections on the complex mechanism of blood clotting and on the origin of proteins, written by Behe though he was not initially acknowledged as their author. He argued that "all of the proteins had to


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-4.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
In his 2008 book Only A Theory, biologist Kenneth R. Miller challenges Behe's claim that the mousetrap is irreducibly complex. Miller observes that various subsets of the five components can be devised to form cooperative units, ones that have different functions from the mousetrap and so, in biological terms, could form functional spandrels before being adapted to the new function of catching mice. In an example taken from his high school experience, Miller recalls that one of his classmates...struck upon the brilliant idea of using an old, broken mousetrap as a spitball catapult, and it worked brilliantly.... It had worked perfectly as something other than a mousetrap.... my rowdy friend had pulled a couple of parts—probably the hold-down bar and catch—off the trap to make it easier to conceal and more effective as a catapult... [leaving] the base, the spring, and the hammer. Not much of a mousetrap, but a helluva spitball launcher.... I realized why [Behe's] mousetrap analogy had bothered me. It was wrong. The mousetrap is not irreducibly complex after all. Other systems identified by Miller that include mousetrap components include the following: use the spitball launcher as a tie clip (same three-part system with different function) remove


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-5.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
The eye is frequently cited by intelligent design and creationism advocates as a purported example of irreducible complexity. Behe used the "development of the eye problem" as evidence for intelligent design in Darwin's Black Box. Although Behe acknowledged that the evolution of the larger anatomical features of the eye have been well-explained, he pointed out that the complexity of the minute biochemical reactions required at a molecular level for light sensitivity still defies explanation. Creationist Jonathan Sarfati has described the eye as evolutionary biologists' "greatest challenge as an example of superb 'irreducible complexity' in God's creation", specifically pointing to the supposed "vast complexity" required for transparency. In an often misquoted passage from On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin appears to acknowledge the eye's development as a difficulty for his theory. However, the quote in context shows that Darwin actually had a very good understanding of the evolution of the eye (see fallacy of quoting out of context). He notes that "to suppose that the eye ... could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree". Yet this observation was merely a rhetorical device for Darwin. He goes on to explain that


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-6.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
The flagella of certain bacteria constitute a molecular motor requiring the interaction of about 40 different protein parts. Behe presents this as a prime example of an irreducibly complex structure defined as "a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning", and argues that since "an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional", it could not have evolved gradually through natural selection. Reducible complexity. In contrast to Behe's claims, many proteins can be deleted or mutated and the flagellum still works, even though sometimes at reduced efficiency. In fact, the composition of flagella is surprisingly diverse across bacteria with many proteins only found in some species but not others. Hence the flagellar apparatus is clearly very flexible in evolutionary terms and perfectly able to lose or gain protein components. Further studies have shown that, contrary to claims of "irreducible complexity", flagella and the type-III secretion system share several components which provides strong evidence of a shared evolutionary history (see below). In fact, this example shows how a complex system can evolve from simpler


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-7.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
=== Reducibility of "irreducible" systems === Researchers have proposed potentially viable evolutionary pathways for allegedly irreducibly complex systems such as blood clotting, the immune system and the flagellum—the three examples Behe proposed. John H. McDonald even showed his example of a mousetrap to be reducible. If irreducible complexity is an insurmountable obstacle to evolution, it should not be possible to conceive of such pathways. Niall Shanks and Karl H. Joplin, both of East Tennessee State University, have shown that systems satisfying Behe's characterization of irreducible biochemical complexity can arise naturally and spontaneously as the result of self-organizing chemical processes. They also assert that what evolved biochemical and molecular systems actually exhibit is "redundant complexity"—a kind of complexity that is the product of an evolved biochemical process. They claim that Behe overestimated the significance of irreducible complexity because of his simple, linear view of biochemical reactions, resulting in his taking snapshots of selective features of biological systems, structures, and processes, while ignoring the redundant complexity of the context in which those features are naturally embedded. They also criticized his over-reliance on overly simplistic metaphors, such as his mousetrap. A computer model of the co-evolution of proteins binding to DNA in the


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-8.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
Irreducible complexity can be seen as equivalent to an "uncrossable valley" in a fitness landscape. A number of mathematical models of evolution have explored the circumstances under which such valleys can, nevertheless, be crossed. An example of a structure that is claimed in Dembski's book No Free Lunch to be irreducibly complex, but evidently has evolved, is the protein T-urf13, which is responsible for the cytoplasmic male sterility of waxy corn and is due to a completely new gene. It arose from the fusion of several non-protein-coding fragments of mitochondrial DNA and the occurrence of several mutations, all of which were necessary. Behe's book Darwin Devolves claims that things like this would take billions of years and could not arise from random tinkering, but the corn was bred during the 20th century. When presented with T-urf13 as an example for the evolvability of irreducibly complex systems, the Discovery Institute resorted to its flawed probability argument based on false premises, akin to the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. === Falsifiability and experimental evidence === Some critics, such as Jerry Coyne (professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago) and Eugenie Scott (a physical anthropologist and former executive director of the National Center


id: irreducible-complexity-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity-9.md
category: reference
title: Irreducible complexity
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:48.976196+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: irreducible-complexity-20260505-0
summary:
"... creationists made the same argument that the complexity of the bacterial flagellum supported creationism as Professors Behe and Minnich now make for ID. (P-853; P-845; 37:155–56 (Minnich))." (Page 34) "Professor Behe admitted in "Reply to My Critics" that there was a defect in his view of irreducible complexity because, while it purports to be a challenge to natural selection, it does not actually address "the task facing natural selection." and that "Professor Behe wrote that he hoped to "repair this defect in future work..." (Page 73) "As expert testimony revealed, the qualification on what is meant by "irreducible complexity" renders it meaningless as a criticism of evolution. (3:40 (Miller)). In fact, the theory of evolution proffers exaptation as a well-recognized, well-documented explanation for how systems with multiple parts could have evolved through natural means." (Page 74) "By defining irreducible complexity in the way that he has, Professor Behe attempts to exclude the phenomenon of exaptation by definitional fiat, ignoring as he does so abundant evidence which refutes his argument. Notably, the NAS has rejected Professor Behe's claim for irreducible complexity..." (Page 75) "As irreducible complexity is only a negative argument against evolution, it is refutable and accordingly testable, unlike


id: junkyard-tornado-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado-0.md
category: reference
title: Junkyard tornado
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:50.177367+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: junkyard-tornado-20260505-0
summary:
The junkyard tornado, sometimes known as Hoyle's fallacy, is a fallacious argument formulated by Fred Hoyle against Earth-based abiogenesis and in favor of panspermia. The junkyard tornado argument has been taken out of its original context by theists to argue for intelligent design, and has since become a mainstay in the rejection of evolution by religious groups, even though Fred Hoyle declared himself an atheist, and even though the junkyard tornado argument is considered a fallacy in its original context of Earth-based abiogenesis vs. panspermia. The junkyard tornado argument uses a calculation of the probability of abiogenesis based on false assumptions, as comparable to "a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein" and to compare the chance of obtaining even a single functioning protein by chance combination of amino acids to a solar system full of blind men solving Rubik's Cubes simultaneously. It was used originally by English astronomer Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) in his book The Intelligent Universe, where he tried to apply statistics to evolution and the origin of life. Similar reasoning was advanced in Darwin's time, and indeed as long ago as Cicero in classical antiquity. Hoyle's fallacy contradicts many well-established


id: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism-0.md
category: reference
title: A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:52.473825+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
"A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" (or "Dissent from Darwinism") was a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a creationist think tank based in Seattle, Washington, U.S., best known for its promotion of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design. As part of the Discovery Institute's Teach the Controversy campaign, the statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random mutations and natural selection to account for the complexity of life, and encourages careful examination of the evidence for "Darwinism", a term intelligent design proponents use to refer to evolution. The statement was published in advertisements under an introduction which stated that its signatories dispute the assertion that Darwin's theory of evolution fully explains the complexity of living things, and dispute that "all known scientific evidence supports [Darwinian] evolution". The Discovery Institute states that the list was first started to refute claims made by promoters of the PBS television series "Evolution" that "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true". Further names of signatories have been added at intervals. The list continues to be used in Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns in an attempt to discredit evolution and bolster claims that intelligent design is scientifically valid by


id: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism-1.md
category: reference
title: A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:52.473825+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
== Discovery Institute usage == By promoting a perception that evolution is the subject of wide controversy and debate within the scientific community, whereas in fact evolution is overwhelmingly supported by scientists, the list is used to lend support to other Discovery Institute campaigns promoting intelligent design, including "Teach the Controversy", "Critical Analysis of Evolution", "Free Speech on Evolution", and "Stand Up For Science". For example, in its "Teach the Controversy" campaign, the Institute claims that "evolution is a theory in crisis" and that many scientists criticize evolution and citing the list as evidence or a resource. The Discovery Institute also asserts that this information is being withheld from students in public high school science classes along with "alternatives" to evolution such as intelligent design. The Institute uses "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" as evidence to support its claim that evolution is disputed widely within the scientific community. In 2002, Stephen C. Meyer, the founder of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, presented the list as evidence to the Ohio Board of Education to promote Teach the Controversy. He cited it as demonstrating that there was a genuine controversy over Darwinian evolution. In the 2005 Kansas evolution hearings


id: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism-2.md
category: reference
title: A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:52.473825+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
The listed affiliations and areas of expertise of the signatories have also been criticized, with many signatories coming from wholly unrelated fields of academia, such as aviation and engineering, computer science and meteorology. In addition, the list was signed by only about 0.01% of scientists in the relevant fields. According to the National Science Foundation, there were approximately 955,300 biological scientists in the United States in 1999. Only about 1/4 of the approximately 700 Darwin Dissenters in 2007 are biologists, according to Kenneth Chang of The New York Times. Approximately 40% of the Darwin Dissenters are not identified as residing in the United States, so in 2007, there were about 105 US biologists among the Darwin Dissenters, representing about 0.01% of the total number of US biologists that existed in 1999. The theory of evolution is overwhelmingly accepted throughout the scientific community. Professor Brian Alters of McGill University, an expert in the creation–evolution controversy, is quoted in an article published by the NIH as stating that "99.9 percent of scientists accept evolution". The list has been criticized by many organizations and publications for lacking any true experts in the relevant fields of research, primarily biology. Critics have noted that of


id: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism-3.md
category: reference
title: A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Scientific_Dissent_from_Darwinism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:52.473825+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-scientific-dissent-from-darwinism-20260505-0
summary:
=== Defections and disagreements === The National Center for Science Education interviewed a sample of the signatories, and found that some were less critical of "Darwinism" than the advertisement claimed. It wrote to all of them asking whether they thought living things shared common ancestors and whether humans and apes shared common ancestors. According to Eugenie Scott of the NCSE, a few of the signatories replied saying that they did accept these principles but did not think that natural selection could explain the origins of life. However, the replies ceased when, according to Scott, the Discovery Institute found out and advised signatories not to respond. She concluded from this that "at least some of the more knowledgeable scientists did not interpret this statement the way that it was intended [by the Discovery Institute] to be interpreted by the general public." For example, signatory Stanley N. Salthe, a visiting scientist at Binghamton University, State University of New York, who describes himself as an atheist, said that when he endorsed a petition he had no idea what the Discovery Institute was. Salthe stated, "I signed it in irritation", and said that evolutionary biologists were being unfair in suppressing competing ideas. He said


id: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy-0.md
category: reference
title: Watchmaker analogy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:54.826271+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-0
summary:
The watchmaker analogy or watchmaker argument is a teleological argument, an argument for the existence of God. In broad terms, the watchmaker analogy states that just as it is readily observed that a watch (e.g., a pocket watch) did not come to be accidentally or on its own but rather through the intentional handiwork of a skilled watchmaker, it is also readily observed that nature did not come to be accidentally or on its own but through the intentional handiwork of an intelligent designer. The watchmaker analogy originated in natural theology and is often used to argue for the concept of intelligent design. The analogy states that a design implies a designer, by an intelligent designer, i.e., a creator deity. The watchmaker analogy was given by William Paley in his 1802 book Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity. The original analogy played a prominent role in natural theology and the "argument from design", where it was used to support arguments for the existence of God of the universe, in both Christianity and Deism. Prior to Paley, however, Sir Isaac Newton, René Descartes, and others from the time of the Scientific Revolution had each believed


id: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy-1.md
category: reference
title: Watchmaker analogy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:54.826271+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-0
summary:
In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. ... There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. Paley went on to argue that the complex structures of living things and the remarkable adaptations of plants


id: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy-2.md
category: reference
title: Watchmaker analogy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:54.826271+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-0
summary:
=== David Hume === Before Paley published his book, David Hume (1711–1776) had already put forward a number of philosophical criticisms of the watch analogy, and to some extent anticipated the concept of natural selection. His criticisms can be separated into three major distinctions. His first objection is that we have no experience of world-making. Hume highlighted the fact that everything we claim to know the cause of, we have derived the inductions from previous experiences of similar objects being created or seen the object itself being created ourselves. For example, with a watch, we know it has to be created by a watchmaker because we can observe it being made and compare it to the making of other similar watches or objects to deduce they have alike causes in their creation. However, he argues that we have no experience of the universe's creation or any other universe's creations to compare our own universe to and never will; therefore, it would be illogical to infer that our universe has been created by an intelligent designer in the same way that a watch has. The second criticism that Hume offers is about the form of the argument as an analogy in


id: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy-3.md
category: reference
title: Watchmaker analogy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:54.826271+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-0
summary:
When Darwin completed his studies of theology at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1831, he read Paley's Natural Theology and believed that the work gave rational proof of the existence of God. That was because living beings showed complexity and were exquisitely fitted to their places in a happy world. Subsequently, on the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin found that nature was not so beneficent, and the distribution of species did not support ideas of divine creation. In 1838, shortly after his return, Darwin conceived his theory that natural selection, rather than divine design, was the best explanation for gradual change in populations over many generations. He published the theory in On the Origin of Species in 1859, and in later editions, he noted responses that he had received: It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers ... I see no


id: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy-4.md
category: reference
title: Watchmaker analogy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:54.826271+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: watchmaker-analogy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Richerson and Boyd === Biologist Peter Richerson and anthropologist Robert Boyd offer an oblique criticism by arguing that watches were not "hopeful monsters created by single inventors," but were created by watchmakers building up their skills in a cumulative fashion over time, each contributing to a watch-making tradition from which any individual watchmaker draws their designs. == Contemporary usage == In the early 20th century, the modernist theology of higher criticism was contested in the United States by Biblical literalists, who campaigned successfully against the teaching of evolution and began calling themselves creationists in the 1920s. When teaching of evolution was reintroduced into public schools in the 1960s, they adopted what they called creation science that had a central concept of design in similar terms to Paley's argument. That idea was then relabeled intelligent design, which presents the same analogy as an argument against evolution by natural selection without explicitly stating that the "intelligent designer" was God. The argument from the complexity of biological organisms was now presented as the irreducible complexity argument, the most notable proponent of which was Michael Behe, and, leveraging off the verbiage of information theory, the specified complexity argument, the most notable proponent of


id: destruction-of-stocking-frames-etc-act-1812-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Stocking_Frames,_etc._Act_1812-0.md
category: reference
title: Destruction of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1812
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Stocking_Frames,_etc._Act_1812
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:09:58.717192+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: destruction-of-stocking-frames-etc-act-1812-20260505-0
summary:
The Destruction of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1812 (52 Geo. 3. c. 16), also known as the Frame-Breaking Act and before passage as the Frame Work Bill, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed by the British Government in 1812 aimed at increasing the penalties for Luddite behaviour in order to discourage it. == Passage and content == The Frame Work Bill was introduced to Parliament on 14 February 1812 by the Home Secretary Richard Ryder, acting in concert with Spencer Perceval (who was at that time both Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister), the Attorney General Sir Vicary Gibbs, the Solicitor General Sir Thomas Plumer, and three Nottinghamshire MPs concerned about the Luddite Movement taking hold in their constituencies. Rushed through as an "emergency measure", the act was passed with an overwhelming majority and received royal assent on 20 March, despite opposition. Fundamentally, there was agreement between members of the government and the opposition that the measure was a last resort; but where supporters believed that all other avenues had been exhausted, opponents (seeing relative tranquillity over the winter period) did not. The newly created Lord Byron used his maiden speech in the House


id: inheritance-tv-series-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_(TV_series)-0.md
category: reference
title: Inheritance (TV series)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_(TV_series)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:01.482470+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: inheritance-tv-series-20260505-0
summary:
Inheritance was a 1967 Granada-produced ITV drama based on a trilogy of novels by Phyllis Bentley - Inheritance (1932), The Rise of Henry Morcar (1946) and A Man of His Time (1966). == Plot == The ten-part period drama revolved around the fortunes of the Oldroyds, a Yorkshire mill-owning family from 1812 to 1965. The early part of the series featured the Luddite riots, involving the burning of mills and the subsequent execution of those responsible. The series turned the expression "There's trouble at mill" into a catchphrase. == Leading actors == The series featured Michael Goodliffe, John Thaw and James Bolam in leading roles over the generations. Each new generation saw Goodliffe and Thaw playing father and eldest son, with Bolam usually playing the part of the younger son. == Cast with original parts == Michael Goodliffe as William Oldroyd Daphne Heard as Janie Smith-Oldroyd Royston Tickner as Charley Mellor Madeleine Christie as Charlotte Stancliffe John Thaw as Will Oldroyd Wilfred Pickles as mill overlooker Thelma Whiteley as Mary Bamforth Judy Wilson as Martha Ackroyd James Bolam as Joe Bamforth David Burke as Henry Morcar Basil Dignam as Mr. Shaw == References == == External links == Inheritance at


id: ned-ludd-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Ludd-0.md
category: reference
title: Ned Ludd
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ned_Ludd
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:02.638960+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ned-ludd-20260505-0
summary:
Ned Ludd is the legendary person to whom the Luddites attributed the name of their movement. In 1779, Ludd is supposed to have broken two stocking frames in a fit of rage. When the "Luddites" emerged in the 1810s, his identity was appropriated to become the folkloric character of Captain Ludd, also known as King Lud or General Ludd, the Luddites' alleged leader and founder. == History == According to the legend, Ludd was a weaver from Anstey, near Leicester, England. In 1779, after either being whipped for idleness or taunted by local youths, he smashed two knitting frames in what was described as a "fit of passion". This story can be traced to an article in The Nottingham Review on 20 December 1811, but there is no independent evidence of its veracity. John Blackner's book History of Nottingham, also published in 1811, provides a variant tale, of a lad called "Ludlam" who was told by his father, a framework-knitter, to "square his needles". Ludlam took a hammer and "beat them into a heap". News of the incident spread, and whenever frames were sabotaged, people would jokingly say "Ned Ludd did it". By 1812, organised frame-breakers became known as Luddites,


id: the-making-of-the-english-working-class-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_English_Working_Class-0.md
category: reference
title: The Making of the English Working Class
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Making_of_the_English_Working_Class
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:03.792890+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: the-making-of-the-english-working-class-20260505-0
summary:
The Making of the English Working Class is a work of English social history written by E. P. Thompson, a New Left historian. It was first published in 1963 by Victor Gollancz Ltd, and republished in revised form in 1968 by Pelican, after which it became an early Open University set book. It concentrates on English artisan and working-class society "in its formative years 1780 to 1832". It was placed 30th in the Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction books of the 20th century. == Overview == In the preface, Thompson said of his aims: "I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the 'obsolete' hand-loom weaver, the 'utopian' artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity." Thompson uses a humanist approach to social history, being critical of those who turn the people of the working class into an inhuman statistical bloc. Thompson wished to disassociate Marxism from Stalinism, and added humanistic principles to the book as a way of steering the left towards democratic socialism, as opposed to totalitarianism. Thompson expounds upon his theories on working-class consciousness, which he says are manifested by values of solidarity, collectivism, mutuality, political radicalism


id: malicious-injuries-to-property-act-1827-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_Injuries_to_Property_Act_1827-0.md
category: reference
title: Malicious Injuries to Property Act 1827
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_Injuries_to_Property_Act_1827
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:07.202216+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: malicious-injuries-to-property-act-1827-20260505-0
summary:
The Malicious Injuries to Property Act 1827 (7 & 8 Geo. 4. c. 30) or the Malicious Injuries to Property (England) Act 1827 was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated enactments relating to malicious injuries to property in England and Wales. The act was one of Peel's Acts which consolidated, repealed and replaced a large number of existing statutes. The enactments replaced by the act were repealed by the Criminal Statutes Repeal Act 1827 (7 & 8 Geo. 4. c. 27). Similar provisions were made for Ireland by the Malicious Injuries to Property (Ireland) Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. c. 56). == Background == In the United Kingdom, acts of Parliament remain in force until expressly repealed. Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the late 18th-century, raised questions about the system and structure of the common law and the poor drafting and disorder of the existing statute book. In 1806, the Commission on Public Records passed a resolution requesting the production of a report on the best mode of reducing the volume of the statute book. From 1810 to 1825, The Statutes of the Realm was published, providing for the first time


id: malicious-injuries-to-property-act-1827-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_Injuries_to_Property_Act_1827-1.md
category: reference
title: Malicious Injuries to Property Act 1827
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malicious_Injuries_to_Property_Act_1827
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:07.202216+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: malicious-injuries-to-property-act-1827-20260505-0
summary:
The Criminal Statutes (Ireland) Repeal Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. 54), which repealed for Ireland over 140 enactments relating to the English criminal law. The Criminal Law (Ireland) Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. 54), which modernised the administration of criminal justice The Larceny (Ireland) Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. c. 55) which consolidated provisions in the law relating to larceny. The Malicious Injuries to Property (Ireland) Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. c. 56), which consolidated provisions in the law relating to malicious injuries to property. In 1828, the Offences Against the Person Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4. c. 31) was passed, which consolidated enactments relating to offences against the person and repealed for England and Wales almost 60 related enactments. In 1829, the Offences Against the Person (Ireland) Act 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. 34) was passed, which consolidated enactments relating to offences against the person and repealed for Ireland almost 60 enactments relating to the criminal law of Ireland. In 1861, bills were introduced, drafted by Charles Sprengel Greaves to mirror Peel's Acts, to consolidate and modernise the criminal law across: Offences Against the Person Malicious Injuries to Property Larceny Forgery Coining Accessories and Abettors In 1861, the Criminal


id: pentrich-rising-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentrich_rising-0.md
category: reference
title: Pentrich rising
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentrich_rising
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:09.562524+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pentrich-rising-20260505-0
summary:
The Pentrich Rising was an armed uprising around the village of Pentrich, Derbyshire, England, on the night of 9–10 June 1817. While much of the planning took place in Pentrich, two of the three ringleaders were from South Wingfield and the other was from Sutton in Ashfield; it started from Hunt's Barn in South Wingfield, and the only person killed died in Wingfield Park. A gathering of some two or three hundred men (stockingers, quarrymen and iron workers), led by Jeremiah Brandreth (The Nottingham Captain, an unemployed stockinger), set out from South Wingfield to march to Nottingham. They were lightly armed with pikes, scythes and a few guns, which had been hidden in a quarry in Wingfield Park, and had a set of rather unfocused revolutionary demands, including the wiping out of the National Debt. One among them, William J. Oliver, was a government spy, and the uprising was quashed soon after it began. Three men were hanged and beheaded at Derby Gaol for their participation in the uprising: Brandreth, Isaac Ludlam and William Turner. Co-accused conspirator and leader George Weightman was sentenced to the same fate, but later had his sentence reduced to transportation for life, as a prisoner


id: pentrich-rising-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentrich_rising-1.md
category: reference
title: Pentrich rising
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentrich_rising
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:09.562524+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: pentrich-rising-20260505-0
summary:
== The march == At 10 pm on 9 June, around fifty men assembled at Hunt's Barn in South Wingfield and for four hours ranged around the neighbourhood for weapons and extra men. At one house a widow, Mary Hepworth, lived with her two sons. When she refused to open up, the rioters broke a window and Brandreth fired a shot through it, killing a servant. Some of the party were appalled at this wanton act, but Brandreth threatened to shoot them also if they did not remain. Eventually the group set out for the Butterley Company works. When they arrived they were confronted by George Goodwin, the factory agent, who, with a few constables, faced them down. One or two of the party defected and, increasingly demoralised, the remainder headed for Ripley. There was no police force at that time. Order was maintained by the various semi-private armies such as the yeomanry, while intelligence was gathered by the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth, from a network formed of local magistrates and paid informers. Through Ripley they pressed more followers into service and at Codnor and Langley Mill they awoke various publicans for beer, bread and cheese. It was now raining


id: protection-of-stocking-frames-etc-act-1788-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Stocking_Frames,_etc._Act_1788-0.md
category: reference
title: Protection of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1788
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_Stocking_Frames,_etc._Act_1788
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:10.714246+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: protection-of-stocking-frames-etc-act-1788-20260505-0
summary:
The Protection of Stocking Frames, etc. Act 1788 (28 Geo. 3. c. 55) was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1788 and aimed at increasing the penalties for the deliberate disruption of the activity of mechanical knitting machines (stocking frames). == Contents == Section one of the act made failure to return frames that had been hired from their owner punishable with a fine, whilst section two made unlawfully disposing of hired frames punishable with imprisonment, and section three made the purchaser equally culpable if he or she knew the frames were not the property of the seller. The final (and most strongly worded) section of the act, section four, made the outright destruction of the frames a felony punishable by 7 to 14 years transportation. The act also included the same penalty for entering by force with the intent to destroy frames or their associated paraphernalia. It was established in later case law that theft of items integral to the correct functioning of the machines (even if they were not damaged) was sufficient to meet the threshold for the act. The act described itself as a response to the malicious theft of frames, and the


id: shirley-novel-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(novel)-0.md
category: reference
title: Shirley (novel)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(novel)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:11.913651+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: shirley-novel-20260505-0
summary:
Shirley, A Tale is an 1849 social novel by the English novelist Charlotte Brontë. It was Brontë's second published novel after Jane Eyre (originally published under Brontë's pseudonym Currer Bell). The novel is set in Yorkshire in 1811–12, during the industrial depression resulting from the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. The novel is set against the backdrop of the Luddite uprisings in the Yorkshire textile industry. The novel's popularity led to the surname Shirley becoming popular as a first name for women. Brontë tells the reader it was a tradition in the family to only give this surname as a first name to male children. It wasn't commonly used as a first name in England before the book. It is now regarded as a female first name. == Background == While Charlotte Brontë was writing Shirley, three of her siblings died. Her brother Branwell died in September 1848, and her sister Emily fell ill and died in December. Brontë resumed writing, but then her only remaining sibling, her sister Anne, became ill and died in May 1849. Some critics believe that the character of Caroline Helstone was loosely based on Anne and it has been speculated that Brontë


id: shirley-novel-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(novel)-1.md
category: reference
title: Shirley (novel)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(novel)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:11.913651+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: shirley-novel-20260505-0
summary:
== Synopsis == Robert Moore is a mill owner noted for apparent ruthlessness towards his employees. He has laid off many of them, and is apparently indifferent to their consequent impoverishment. In fact, he had no choice, since the mill is deeply in debt. He is determined to restore his family's honour and fortune. As the novel opens, Robert awaits delivery of new labour-saving machinery for the mill, which will enable him to lay off additional employees. Together with some friends, he watches all night, but the machinery is destroyed by "frame-breakers" on the way to the mill. Robert's business difficulties continue, due in part to continuing labour unrest, but even more to the Napoleonic Wars and the accompanying Orders in Council, which forbid British merchants from trading in American markets. Robert is very close to his cousin Caroline Helstone, who comes to his house to be taught French and arithmetic by his sister, Hortense. Caroline worships Robert. Caroline's father is dead and her mother has abandoned her, leaving her to be brought up by her uncle, Rev. Matthew Helstone. To keep himself from falling in love with her Robert keeps his distance, since he cannot afford to marry for


id: shirley-novel-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(novel)-2.md
category: reference
title: Shirley (novel)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_(novel)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:11.913651+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: shirley-novel-20260505-0
summary:
== Characters == The four central characters are studies in contrast: the two friends Caroline Helstone and Shirley Keeldar, and their lovers, the brothers Robert and Louis Gérard Moore. Robert Gérard Moore – A 30-year-old industrialist whose textile mill is idle because of the war. Perceived as an outsider because he comes from Antwerp, even though he is a cousin of Caroline's. Robert Moore installs new labour-saving machinery in his mill and becomes the target of Luddite attacks. Louis Gérard Moore – Robert's brother, working as a tutor for Shirley's uncle. Caroline Helstone – An 18-year-old timid and uncertain, but also wise and capable young woman, the niece of Rev. Helstone and best friend of Shirley. Shirley Keeldar – A 21-year-old orphaned heiress to a fortune. A headstrong, independent and determined young woman. Other characters in the novel include: Rev. Matthew Helstone – Caroline's uncle. A fierce man, who is not cruel, but still shows little affection for his niece. Marriage has made him distrustful of women in general. Hortense Gérard Moore – Robert and Louis's sister. Hiram Yorke – A local landowner. Joseph "Joe" Scott – Robert Moore's foreman at the mill. Mrs Pryor – Shirley's timid but wise


id: metrication-opposition-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition-0.md
category: reference
title: Metrication opposition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:13.383106+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: metrication-opposition-20260505-0
summary:
The spread of metrication around the world in the last two centuries has been met with both support and opposition. == Metrication == The United States of America officially accepted the Metric System in 1878 but United States customary units remain ubiquitous outside the science and technology sector. The metric system has been largely adopted in Canada and Ireland, and partially adopted in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, without having fully displaced imperial units from all areas of life. In other Anglophone countries such as Australia, Singapore and New Zealand, imperial units have been formally deprecated and are no longer officially sanctioned for use. == Technical arguments == === Natural evolution and human scale === One argument used by opponents of the metric system is that traditional systems of measurement were developed organically from actual use. Early measures were human in scale, intuitive, and imprecise, as illustrated by still-current expressions such as a stone's throw, within earshot, a cartload or a handful. These measurements' developers, living and working in an era before modern science, gave fundamental priority to ease of learning and use; moreover, the variation permissible within these measurements allowed them to be relational and commensurable: a request


id: metrication-opposition-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition-1.md
category: reference
title: Metrication opposition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:13.383106+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: metrication-opposition-20260505-0
summary:
=== Tradition === Traditionalists consider the retention of traditional non-metric units as a form of traditionalism, valuing historic usage spanning centuries. Non-metric units often have had different values in different times and places, and some units such as the stone even had different definitions depending on the type of object measured. At the time of the French Revolution there were over 5000 different foot measures. The current UK imperial system is based on the Weights and Measures Act 1824 (5 Geo. 4. c. 74), dating from about 30 years after the founding of the metric system, and some of its units differ very significantly from the United States customary units of the same name. By contrast, the metric system has remained unchanged (for most practical purposes) since it was first defined. Even though the metre was initially defined to equal one ten-millionth of the length of the meridian through Paris from pole to the equator, the first prototype metre bar was subsequently found to be short by 0.2 millimetres (because researchers miscalculated the flattening of the Earth). Nevertheless, this original reference metre was retained, leaving the exact distance from equator to pole slightly more than ten million metres. The need


id: metrication-opposition-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition-2.md
category: reference
title: Metrication opposition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:13.383106+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: metrication-opposition-20260505-0
summary:
The legal position on the use of imperial measures has not changed. Pre-packed goods and goods sold loose from bulk, such as fruit and vegetables, are still required to be sold in metric quantities and weighing scales must be calibrated in metric units of measurement. Suggestions that goods can now be sold in pounds and ounces are incorrect. In the US, there is also government compulsion with weights and measures. Federal and state laws control the labelling of goods for sale in the supermarket, drugs, wine, liquor, etc. The US Fair Packaging and Labeling Act mandates that measurement must be in both metric and US customary units. However, wine must be bottled in 50 ml, 100 ml, 187 ml, 375 ml, 500 ml, 750 ml, 1 litre, 1.5 litre, or 3 litre sizes. Containers over 3 litres must be bottled in quantities of whole numbers of litres. No other sizes may be bottled. Spirits must also be sold in metric quantities. NASA, the United States' space agency, has taken a less compulsory approach. On 29 March 2010, NASA decided to avoid making its proposed Constellation rocket system metric-compliant, especially due to pressure from manufacturers; ultimately the program was discontinued. It


id: metrication-opposition-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition-3.md
category: reference
title: Metrication opposition
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_opposition
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:13.383106+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: metrication-opposition-20260505-0
summary:
=== Aim of the BWMA === The BWMA's stated aim is to uphold the freedom to use the Imperial system and to oppose the compulsory imposition of the metric system in the UK. The BWMA's campaign parallels the evolution of the eurosceptic viewpoint of the UK's relationship with the EU - its founder, Vivian Linacre, stood for election as a UK Independence Party candidate in 1995, the same year as he founded the BWMA - famously asking the controversial eurosceptic Enoch Powell for endorsement of his political campaign. By the time of the modern BWMA's founding, metrication in the United Kingdom was far advanced, having begun in 1962. British schoolchildren had been educated using only metric measures since 1974 (earlier in some places), and British industry had changed to using metric tools and equipment during the 1980s and were, in most cases, manufacturing to metric standards. === Campaigns === BWMA maintain that people should be free to use the metric system if they want, but that it should not be forced upon them. and specifically, the Association campaigns for freedom for traders to serve their customers in whichever measures both parties find most convenient. BWMA campaigns against the metrication of


id: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)-0.md
category: reference
title: Anthony Bennett (Veritas politician)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:14.557260+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-0
summary:
Anthony John Stuart Bennett (born 7 September 1947) is an English former solicitor and former candidate for public office. He was a member of the British political party Veritas and was listed on the database of the Electoral Commission as official leader for three days, before the real leader was revealed as Robert Kilroy-Silk. In 2006, he began a private prosecution against Michael Barrymore for alleged drugs and drink offences committed on the night Stuart Lubbock was found dead at the entertainer's home. Bennett co-wrote a book with Terry Lubbock, the father of Stuart Lubbock, Not Awight: Getting Away With Murder, explaining their theory that Stuart Lubbock died as a result of a violent attack on him, which Barrymore and his associates that night covered up. He campaigned against the parents of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared while on a family holiday in Portugal in 2007. He asserted that they should have been prosecuted for child neglect and accused them of covering up what happened to their daughter, a charge which ultimately led to the family successfully pursuing legal action against him. == Background and family life == Bennett was educated at Bournemouth School. He then attended Sheffield University where he


id: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)-1.md
category: reference
title: Anthony Bennett (Veritas politician)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:14.557260+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-0
summary:
== Political career == Bennett became active in politics when he lived in Derbyshire from 1972 to 1978. In May 1976, he was voted onto North East Derbyshire District Council as an Independent Labour candidate for the Hasland Ward, where he served until 1978. In 1978, he moved to Harlow where, in 1985, he joined Harlow Constituency Labour Party. Bennett founded two credit unions in the 1980s – the Harlow Community Credit Union in 1980 and, in 1988, the Harlow Council Employees Credit Union. They merged several years later to form HarlowSave Credit Union. In November 1997, Bennett left the Labour party and joined the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). In April 1999, he became the Campaign Manager for UKIP's Eastern Region campaign and, in July 1999, he became Political Assistant to Jeffrey Titford, UKIP MEP, a post he held until February 2001. In January 2000, he co-founded the UKIP's Metric Martyrs Fund with Jeffrey Titford, and published leaflets encouraging traders to defy the new laws making it an offence to sell fruit, vegetables and other "loose goods" using weighing scales calibrated in pounds and ounces. He stood for the UKIP in Harlow in the 2001 General Election, where he


id: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)-2.md
category: reference
title: Anthony Bennett (Veritas politician)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:14.557260+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-0
summary:
=== Stuart Lubbock === In January 2006, Bennett started a private prosecution against the entertainer Michael Barrymore over alleged offences involving drink and the possession and use of Class A and Class B drugs by Barrymore during the night when 31-year-old Stuart Lubbock was found dead at Barrymore's house in March 2001. The prosecution was blocked by a District Judge (Magistrates' Court) at Southend-on-Sea Magistrates' Court on the grounds of insufficient evidence. After the decision was made, Bennett announced that he had been acting independently but that he had the support of the Lubbock family. Barrymore released a statement in which he said, "Mr Bennett's motivation to seek the truth as to how Mr Stuart Lubbock received the injuries to his body is absolutely right. I remain totally committed, as I always have been, to continue to pursue the truth. Allegations about drugs on that night have always been a complete irrelevance as to how Stuart Lubbock suffered those injuries. The court held Mr Bennett's misguided application to prosecute me for drugs offences was an abuse of process." Before the decision was made not to allow the prosecution, Terry Lubbock, the father of Stuart Lubbock, met with Barrymore, when it


id: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)-3.md
category: reference
title: Anthony Bennett (Veritas politician)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bennett_(Veritas_politician)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:14.557260+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anthony-bennett-veritas-politician-20260505-0
summary:
=== Disappearance of Madeleine McCann === On 1 August 2007, three months after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal, Bennett set up a fund called The Madeleine Foundation to fund a private prosecution for child neglect. In November 2007, he started such a prosecution against the parents of Madeline – Gerry and Kate McCann. The initial hearing was at Loughborough Magistrates' Court where the application was dismissed on the grounds that it was a matter for the Portuguese authorities, and thus beyond the jurisdiction of British courts. The foundation was formally constituted in January 2008 with Bennett as secretary. One of the actions for which Tony Bennett and the Foundation were criticised by the British press was the leafletting of the village of Rothley where the McCanns live. He referred the articles in the UK media, which called him and others in the Madeleine Foundation "sickos" and "stalkers", to the PCC. The PCC replied that the newspapers had been justified in referring to him and other members of the Foundation in those terms. After receiving a letter from libel lawyers Carter-Ruck dated 27 August 2009, Bennett gave an undertaking "Not to


id: metric-martyrs-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Martyrs-0.md
category: reference
title: Metric Martyrs
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Martyrs
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:16.802550+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: metric-martyrs-20260505-0
summary:
The Metric Martyrs were a British advocacy group who campaigned for the freedom to choose what units of measurement are used by traders. The group believed that vendors should have the freedom to mark their goods with imperial weights and measurements alone. This opposes the current legal position that imperial units may be used so long as metric units are also displayed. The advocacy group was formed by individuals who had been accused of offences related to selling loose produce using imperial measures, including not displaying metric signage, and for using unstamped weighing machines (which had their stamps removed by the authorities). Newspapers dubbed the group the "metric martyrs" after Chris Howell, then weights and measures spokesman for the Institute of Trading Standards Administration (today the Trading Standards Institute), said that they could martyr themselves if they wanted to. == Legal cases == In 2001 Steve Thoburn, a greengrocer in Sunderland, the main defendant in the original case, was convicted of two offences under the Weights and Measures Act 1985 of using weighing equipment that was not stamped by a Weights and Measures Inspector. The stamps had been obliterated because the scales were not capable of weighing in the metric


id: quebra-quilos-revolt-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebra–Quilos_revolt-0.md
category: reference
title: Quebra–Quilos revolt
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebra–Quilos_revolt
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:17.960232+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: quebra-quilos-revolt-20260505-0
summary:
The Quebra–Quilos revolt (Portuguese: revolta do Quebra-Quilos, literally, "revolt of the kilogram-breaker") was a three-month-long revolt in opposition to the proposed transition to the metric system in Brazil. The unrest took place from 31 October 1874 to January 1875 as part of wider anti-government protests. == Background == The metric system was first introduced in Brazil in 1862 as a rebellion against the monopoly established by foreign merchants. Slaves took part on occasions demanding emancipation. Through January the revolt died on its own, without any drastic intervention by the army. The spread of the revolt led to involvement of groups with different goals, such as slaves demanding emancipation, anti masonic clergy and conscientious objectors. The revolt was caused by the implementation of a variety of provincial and municipal taxes, that rendered goods unaffordable for a large portion of the population. The adoption of the metric system further increased prices, as merchants seized the opportunity to manipulate the prices, draft resistance also played a role in increasing tensions. Religion played a role in the uprising as the rebels often assembled in churches, praying before the patron saints before launching their raids, the rebel flag depicted effigies of the Virgin Mary and


id: technophobia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technophobia-0.md
category: reference
title: Technophobia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technophobia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:19.501180+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: technophobia-20260505-0
summary:
Technophobia (from Greek τέχνη technē, "art, skill, craft" and φόβος phobos, "fear"), also known as technofear, is the fear or dislike of, or discomfort with, advanced technology or complex devices, especially personal computers, smartphones, and tablet computers. A 2018 study proposed a new conceptual and empirical definition of technophobia based on a critical literature review and data analysis results: Technophobia is an irrational fear and/or anxiety that individuals form as a response to a new stimulus that comes in the form of a technology that modifies and/or changes the individual’s normal or previous routine in performing a certain job/task. Individuals may display active, physical reactions (fear) such as avoidance and/or passive reactions (anxiety) such as distress or apprehension. Although there are numerous interpretations of technophobia, they become more complex as technology continues to evolve. The term is generally used in the sense of an irrational fear, but others contend fears are justified. It is the opposite of technophilia. Larry Rosen, a research psychologist, computer educator, and professor at California State University, Dominguez Hills, suggests that there are three dominant subcategories of technophobes – the "uncomfortable users", the "cognitive computerphobes", and "anxious computerphobes". First receiving widespread notice during the Industrial Revolution,


id: technophobia-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technophobia-1.md
category: reference
title: Technophobia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technophobia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:19.501180+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: technophobia-20260505-0
summary:
=== Use of modern technologies among Old Order Anabaptists === Groups considered by some people to be technophobic are the Amish and other Old Order Anabaptists. The Amish follow a set of moral codes outlined in the Ordnung, which rejects the use of certain forms of technology for personal use. Donald B. Kraybill, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner, and Steven M. Nolt state in their book The Amish: More significantly the Amish modify and adapt technology in creative ways to fit their cultural values and social goals. Amish technologies are diverse, complicated and ever-changing. What the Amish do, is selective use of modern technologies in order to maintain their belief and culture. == Technophobia in arts == An early example of technophobia in fiction and popular culture is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Technophobia achieved commercial success in the 1980s with the movie The Terminator, in which a computer becomes self-aware, and decides to kill all humans. Shows such as Doctor Who have tackled the topic of technophobia – most specifically in the episode "The Robots of Death", with a character displaying a great fear of robots due to their lack of body language, described by the Fourth Doctor as giving them the appearance


id: ai-takeover-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover-0.md
category: reference
title: AI takeover
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:20.654915+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ai-takeover-20260505-0
summary:
An AI takeover is a fictional or hypothetical future event in which autonomous artificial intelligence systems acquire the capability to supersede human decisions. This could occur through economic manipulation, infrastructure control, or direct intervention, leading to de facto governance. Scenarios range from gradual economic dominance through supplanting the human workforce by automation up to a sudden or aggressive global takeover by a robot uprising or other forms of rogue AI. Stories of AI takeovers have been popular throughout science fiction. Commentators argue that recent advancements in the field have heightened concern about such scenarios. In public debate, prominent figures such as Stephen Hawking have advocated research into precautionary measures to ensure future superintelligent machines remain under human control. == Types == === Automation of the economy === The traditional consensus among economists has been that technological progress does not cause long-term unemployment. However, recent innovation in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence has raised worries that human labor will become obsolete, leaving workers in some sectors without employment. Many small and medium-sized firms may also be forced to close if they cannot afford or license the latest robotic and AI technology, and may need to focus on areas or


id: ai-takeover-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover-1.md
category: reference
title: AI takeover
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:20.654915+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ai-takeover-20260505-0
summary:
Scientists such as Stephen Hawking are confident that superhuman artificial intelligence is physically possible, stating "there is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains". According to Nick Bostrom, a superintelligent machine would not necessarily be motivated by the same emotional desire to collect power that often drives human beings but might rather treat power as a means toward attaining its ultimate goals; taking over the world would both increase its access to resources and help to prevent other agents from stopping the machine's plans. As a simplified example, a paperclip maximizer designed solely to create as many paperclips as possible would want to take over the world so that it can use all of the world's resources to create as many paperclips as possible, and, additionally, prevent humans from shutting it down or using those resources on things other than paperclips. There are debates on how realistic AI takeover scenarios are. According to a 2026 research paper, many of the arguments about existential risks are based on speculative assumptions about how intelligent AI systems could become, how they would behave and what goals


id: ai-takeover-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover-2.md
category: reference
title: AI takeover
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_takeover
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:20.654915+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ai-takeover-20260505-0
summary:
Technology research: A machine with superhuman scientific research abilities would be able to beat the human research community to milestones such as nanotechnology or advanced biotechnology Strategizing: A superintelligence might be able to simply outwit human opposition Social manipulation: A superintelligence might be able to recruit human support, or covertly incite a war between humans Economic productivity: As long as a copy of the AI could produce more economic wealth than the cost of its hardware, individual humans would have an incentive to voluntarily allow the artificial general intelligence (AGI) to run a copy of itself on their systems Hacking: A superintelligence could find new exploits in computers connected to the Internet, and spread copies of itself onto those systems, or might steal money to finance its plans ==== Sources of AI advantage ==== According to Bostrom, a computer program that faithfully emulates a human brain, or that runs algorithms that are as powerful as the human brain's algorithms, could still become a "speed superintelligence" if it can think orders of magnitude faster than a human, due to being made of silicon rather than flesh, or due to optimization increasing the speed of the AGI. Biological neurons operate at about


id: anti-tech-resistance-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Tech_Resistance-0.md
category: reference
title: Anti-Tech Resistance
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Tech_Resistance
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:21.812583+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-tech-resistance-20260505-0
summary:
Anti-Tech Resistance (ATR) is a radical anti-tech movement that views the technological system as incompatible with wild nature, human nature, and freedom. The movement calls for the destruction of the technological system and then a re-adoption of pre-industrial technology. ATR states they are an above-ground movement and they only known to have engaged in legal forms of activism. ATR was founded in France in 2022. Most of the membership is based in Europe, and most of their actions are as well. They do have forms of international recruitment and often promote their message to an international audience. == Beliefs == Much of the ideology ATR posses stems from Ted Kaczynski (also known as The Unabomber) and his books Anti-Tech Revolution: Why & How, as well as Technological Slavery. The movement aims to destroy the technological system, which they define as the web of interconnected and interrelated technologies built following the first industrial revolution. ATR views the technological system as a threat to both the planet and people. They argue that revolution against the technological system is the only viable means of averting catastrophic damage to wild nature and human freedom. The movement argues that technology is not neutral and that


id: anti-tech-revolution-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Tech_Revolution-0.md
category: reference
title: Anti-Tech Revolution
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Tech_Revolution
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:23.023643+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-tech-revolution-20260505-0
summary:
Anti-Tech Revolution: Why and How is a 2016 non-fiction book by Ted Kaczynski. == Publication history == In 2016, the first edition was published. A second edition was published by Fitch & Madison in 2020. == Book structure == There are four chapters and six appendices in the book: Chapters: The Development of a Society Can Never Be Subject to Rational Human Control Why the Technological System Will Destroy Itself How to Transform a Society: Errors to Avoid Strategic Guidelines for an Anti-Tech Movement Appendices: In Support of Chapter One In Support of Chapter Two Stay on Target The Long-Term Outcome of Geo-Engineering Thurston's View of Stalin's Terror. State Terrorism in General. The Teachings of Jesus Christ and Their Effect on Society == Synopsis == This book is split up into two parts: The first two chapters of this book argue for the need for a revolution to bring about the end of the technological system, while the second two chapters detail how a movement against the technological system should organize itself to achieve its goal. In Chapter 1 of this book, Kaczynski argues against the notion that humans can rationally steer the development of society for numerous reasons, including


id: anti-tech-revolution-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Tech_Revolution-1.md
category: reference
title: Anti-Tech Revolution
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Tech_Revolution
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:23.023643+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-tech-revolution-20260505-0
summary:
Postulate 1. One cannot change a society by pursuing goals that are vague or abstract. Instead, one has to have a clear and concrete goal. As an experienced activist put it: "Vague, over-generalized objectives are seldom met. The trick is to conceive of some specific development which will inevitably propel your community in the direction you want it to go." Postulate 2. Preaching alone—the mere advocacy of ideas—cannot bring about important, long-lasting changes in the behavior of human beings, unless in a very small minority. Postulate 3. Any radical movement tends to attract many people who may be sincere, but whose goals are only loosely related to the goals of the movement. The result is that the movement's original goals may become blurred, if not completely perverted. Postulate 4. Every radical movement that acquires great power becomes corrupt, at the latest, when its original leaders (meaning those who joined the movement while it was still relatively weak) are all dead or politically inactive. In saying that a movement becomes corrupt, we mean that its members, and especially its leaders, primarily seek personal advantages (such as money, security, social status, powerful offices, or a career) rather than dedicating themselves sincerely to


id: clanker-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanker-0.md
category: reference
title: Clanker
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clanker
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:24.180973+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: clanker-20260505-0
summary:
"Clanker" is a derogatory term for robots and artificial intelligence (AI) software. The term has been used in Star Wars media, first appearing in the franchise's 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando. In 2025, the term became widely used to express hatred or distaste for machines ranging from delivery robots to large language models. This trend has been attributed to anxiety around the negative societal effects of AI. == In science fiction == The term has been previously used in science fiction literature, first appearing in a 1958 article by William Tenn in which he uses it to describe robots from science fiction films like Metropolis. The Star Wars franchise began using the term as a slur against droids in the 2005 video game Star Wars: Republic Commando before being prominently used in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which follows a galaxy-wide war between the Galactic Republic's clone troopers and the Confederacy of Independent Systems' battle droids. In Star Wars media, robots—more commonly known as droids—are routinely depicted as the subjects of discrimination. For example, in the original Star Wars film, C-3PO and R2-D2 are abducted by Jawas and sold to the family of Luke Skywalker.


id: digital-dystopia-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dystopia-0.md
category: reference
title: Digital dystopia
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dystopia
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:25.336655+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: digital-dystopia-20260505-0
summary:
Digital dystopia, cyber dystopia or algorithmic dystopia refers to an alternate future or present in which digitized technologies or algorithms have caused major societal disruption. It refers to dystopian narratives of technologies influencing social, economic, and political structures, and its diverse set of components includes virtual reality, artificial intelligence, ubiquitous connectivity, ubiquitous surveillance, and social networks. In popular culture, technological dystopias often are about or depict mass loss of privacy due to technological innovation and social control. They feature heightened socio-political issues like social fragmentation, intensified consumerism, dehumanization, and mass human migrations. == Origins == In 1998, "digital dystopia" was used to describe negative effects of multichannel television on society. "Cyber-dystopia" was coined in 1998 in connection with cyber-punk literature. One of the earliest mentions is on 2004 when an academic and blogger was expelled for commenting on how the Sims Online Computer game based in the city of Alphaville had become a digital dystopia controlled by "president" Donald Meacham and corrupt faction of robot nobles had become a digital dystopia with crime, cyber-sex prostitution and general civic chaos. Digital experimentation of the elements of cyberspace became extremely invasive and took on the appearance of anarchy in Alphaville. In August


id: digital-phobic-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_phobic-0.md
category: reference
title: Digital phobic
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_phobic
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:26.516663+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: digital-phobic-20260505-0
summary:
Digital phobic is an informal phrase used to describe a reluctance to become fully immersed in the digital age for being fearful of how it might negatively change or alter everyday life. The fast-paced development of the digital world in the twenty-first century has contributed to the digital divide becoming a very real problem for a segment of the population for whom a lack of education of, interest in, or access to digital devices has left them excluded from the technological world and fearful of its growing omnipresence. Digital phobic is part of a growing dictionary of digital vocabulary exploring the social impact of the technological age. The phrase considers the fears associated with technological evolution and change, and acknowledges the possibility of exclusion as a result of a rising reliance on technology in day-to-day life. == Discourse == Everyday use of technology has increased dramatically since the turn of the century, significantly impacting both those embracing technological change as well as those reluctant to be a part of it. A sharp rise in technological innovations during the 21st century has been responsible for changing much of the way we work, socialize, and learn – all of which can be


id: digital-phobic-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_phobic-1.md
category: reference
title: Digital phobic
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_phobic
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:26.516663+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: digital-phobic-20260505-0
summary:
== Origins == Digital phobia is part of a wider societal conversation on how we relate to, trust in, and interact with technology and considers the potentially negative implications of what otherwise appears to be a positive advancement of the modern world. This phrase has been developed by Foresters, the international financial services organisation, for the purpose of describing attitudes to technology among the UK population. Developed within a digital vocabulary consisting of four other phrases (digital addict, digital omnivore, digital agnostic, digital denier), digital phobic is part of a scale of social description for online behavior within the digital age. The phrase has been used as part of discussion on the more general use of technology within the 21st century and the importance of striking a balance between time spent on and offline. Research conducted by Foresters in association with Tech Timeout, a social communications initiative considering the role of technology in contemporary society, formed the basis of the descriptor and identified the key traits of each type of digital user based on answers from over 1,000 UK respondents. Both anecdotal and research-based evidence suggests categories of internet use, whilst they cannot be linearly divided, are able to loosely


id: digital-phobic-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_phobic-2.md
category: reference
title: Digital phobic
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_phobic
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:26.516663+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: digital-phobic-20260505-0
summary:
== Education == Digital phobia has had a negative impact on the field of education. Some teachers have expressed a fear that new and advanced technology is supplanting them as the masters of their fields of study and a study of teachers in Wilmington, Delaware has shown that educators in this area are acclimating to the new technology in their classrooms at a slower pace. The local researchers believe that there are many factors why that is the case and some of the things they have found are things such as a lack of technological education by the teachers, and also the lack of time, or incentive to adjust to the new technology. University Larry Cuban has stated that "The introduction of computers into school was supposed to improve academic achievement, and alter how teachers taught. Neither has occurred." The constant infusion of new technology has many teachers fearing that they are losing their classroom. This new technology is essentially diminishing the role of a teacher in the classroom. Researchers believe that educators are slow to adapt to technology because they aren't given time to acclimate to the new technology, causing them to hesitate to use it in the classroom


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-0.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
Doina, or Doină (sometimes translated as "Lament"), is a political poem by the Romanian Mihai Eminescu. It was first published in 1883 and is therefore seen by some as Eminescu's final work in verse, although it may actually be an 1870s piece, inspired or enhanced by the perceived injustice of the Berlin Treaty. A variation of the doina (plural: doine), picked up from Romanian folklore, it is noticeably angry to the point of rhetorical violence, a radical expression of Romanian nationalism against invading "foreigners", with additional hints of ecopoetry and "anti-technicist" discourse. Doina delineates the ideal geographical space of Greater Romania, at a time when Romanian-inhabited regions were divided between an independent kingdom and multinational empires. Its final lines call on Stephen the Great, depicted as a sleeping hero, to take up the cause of Romanians and chase foreigners out with the sound of his horn. The same basic themes appear in another poem by Eminescu, the anthem-like La arme ("To Arms"), which is sometimes discussed as a variant of Doina. Expressly anti-Russian, also read as antisemitic, anti-German, anti-Greek, anti-Hungarian, and anti-Ukrainian, Doina has been described as "chauvinistic" and "minor" by some critics, "beautiful" by others. It has been present


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-1.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
A poet as well as a folklorist, Eminescu was well acquainted with the traditional forms of Romanian poetry, and wrote several poems in folkloric style—his Transylvanian enemy, Alexandru Grama, could therefore claim that Eminescu had simply plagiarized Transylvanian doine. As noted by Eminescu expert Perpessicius, one of his first published works, taken up by Familia in the 1860s, was a "type of doina" or a "pseudo-doina". Another variation on that pattern is addressed to "His Majesty, The Forest" (Codrule, Măria ta), with the poet asking to be turned into a tree branch, rocking into eternal slumber. Seen by scholars as an early draft of Doina, it was described as "hollow" and "rudimentary" by critic Constanța Marinescu. However, according to Călinescu, such works sound less "gauche" than actual folk poetry, as polished for print by Vasile Alecsandri. Contrarily, Perpessicius asserts that Eminescu was less talented that Alecsandri, never matching his work as a folklorist or folklore-inspired versifier. According to scholar Marin Bucur, Marinescu is essentially wrong in treating the draft as an actual poem, and also in failing to see why Doina itself is a worthy piece. Eminescu's interest in doine only peaked after 1877, when he was living as a


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-2.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
As argued by comparatist Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu, the poem is one of "national revival", "explosive" in "deplor[ing] the alienation of Romanians in their own lands". Doina anticipates a Greater Romania comprising all the Romanian-inhabited regions. However, as noted by the Hungarian poet Alpár Horváth, its mention of the Tisza and the Dniester contains a "geographical inaccuracy [that] causes some complications", since the two rivers are actually located close to each other at their sources: "it is confusing for conservative European ears, unsure about whether it refers to the source or the mouth of the Tisza." Literary historian Ion Buzași proposes that Eminescu may have been referencing an earlier pseudonymous work, which he attributes to Andrei Mureșanu: Literary historian John Neubauer notes Doina's "chauvinistic remarks", while Bernard Camboulives refers to its "notes of xenophobia", stemming from a "growing intellectual despair". These, Camboulives notes, "might shock those readers who are unfamiliar with Romanian history". The opening lines vaguely mention "foreigners", but the portion may refer to the situation in Eminescu's own Bukovina, specifically to relatively recent presence there of Germans, Ukrainians, and especially Bukovina Jews. The significance of the "dogs-eating-hearts" line has been a traditional topic of debate within the larger community of


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-3.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
The Bukovina themes had appeared in several Eminescu doine, notably including an 1877 stanza in which Eminescu, or his peasant inspiration, describes the region at "the mercy of the foreigner, which is like a thistle's shadow". The poetic image was apparently inspired to Eminescu by a Bukovina folk song, which has umbra spinului ("burr shadow") alongside references to the country being "riddled with foreigners"; this is fully quoted in his September 1877 article, Răpirea Bucovinei ("How They Abducted Bukovina"). The metaphor is also found in Doina, suggesting "the image of poverty sweeping over the country [...]. In times of drought, the thistle's shadow is more desolate than no shadow at all, a mock-offering to the heat-stricken people." A specific reference to the village of Boian, in Doina's ninth line, has contributed to that locality's notoriety in a Romanian cultural context. Another discernible theme is Eminescu's anger over the plight of Romanians in Russia's Bessarabia Governorate, which included the Budjak. As Irimia notes, the Austrian and Russian occupations appear as a continuum in Eminescu's lyrical universe. Bessarabia in its entirety is introduced as a Romanian grievance in the opening line—according to scholar Aurel Vasiliu, the Dniester–Tisza metonymy was first used by


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-4.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
=== Becoming a symbol === Doina was included by Titu Maiorescu in his first-ever critical edition of Eminescu's poems, published at Editura Socec as the author had withdrawn from public life. The "classic" selection and arrangement, which place Doina right before "One Wish Alone Have I", were praised by Perpessicius as particularly tactful. Nevertheless, critics were flummoxed by Maiorescu's apparent carelessness, which, in poems such as Doina, proliferated known typos. The Socec collection is known for missing an entire line of the poem, alluding to the foreigners' reliance on the "iron road". The corrected version of Doina was published in February 1884 by Maiorescu's rivals at Contemporanul. Socec itself amended the text in its revised edition of 1895. La arme remained unpublished until 1902, but was widely known through its musical adaptation by Eduard Caudella, which is probably from 1883. Caudella himself believed that the work was a suitable anthem, "the Romanians' Marseillaise". Another version, circulated in the Banat by Liviu Tempea, was sung to the tune of Chant du départ. The first use of Doina as an object of study in academia was I. Manliu's manual of poetics, published in 1890 and heavily indebted to Maiorescu's observations, closely followed


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-5.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
=== In Greater Romania === During the early stages of World War I, Romania maintained neutrality, while Transylvanian and Bukovinan Romanians were called upon to serve under arms in Austria-Hungary. At this stage, Doina could be recited in Transylvania. In June 1916, it was put to music for a theatrical performance by the Union of Romanian Women in Brașov. Two months after, the Romanian Kingdom entered World War I as an Entente country; the alliance favored the Russian Empire over Austria-Hungary, and the cause of Transylvania over that of Bessarabia. During the subsequent campaigns. La arme was a soldiers' anthem, used for instance during Nerva I. Paul's charge on German positions (October 1916), while Doina was sung by the Lăutar Cristache Ciolac as a "pitiful song of ancient woes". Driven into a war of attrition, Romania contemplated defeat in early 1918. Writing at the time in Chemarea, Benjamin Fondane reminded Iorga and other nationalists of the anti-Russian content of Doina, which, he argued, had been proven right. The following months and years saw the creation and consolidation of Greater Romania, beginning with the union of Bessarabia with Romania. The culmination of the process was a "Great Union" (December 1, 1918),


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-6.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
=== Communist censorship === In late 1944, shortly after King Michael's Coup and the onset of Soviet occupation in Romania, La arme was banned. At the time, Iron Guard commandos, supported by Nazi Germany, used Doina as a password. Under the subsequent Romanian communist regime, Doina was also targeted by political censorship: already in 1946, the quotation from Doina was removed from Schmidt-Faur's relief. The poem could not be published in Bessarabia, which was included in the Soviet Union as the Moldavian SSR. The paradox was noted by Colonel Gheorghe Eminescu, who complained that Soviet authorities had reinvented his uncle into a "Moldovan" poet while making sure that no one could access either Doina or La arme. In both countries, Doina was "banned and recited only in private readings because it named Russia as one of the imperial powers that had oppressed the Romanian nation." Also uncomfortable were its "strident nationalism" and its mention of the Dniester, "at the time in the territory of the Soviet Union." Philologist Petru Creția also argued that Doina upset the communist rulers because they themselves were mostly "foreigners [...], extremely offended by the things one read in there". In Western countries, the anti-communist Romanian


id: doina-eminescu-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)-7.md
category: reference
title: Doina (Eminescu)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doina_(Eminescu)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:27.850640+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: doina-eminescu-20260505-0
summary:
=== Recovery === Also in the 1980s, Adrian Păunescu of Cenaclul Flacăra was staging public readings of Doina in Romania. Sometimes broadcast by radio, these were also followed by Romanian activists in the Moldavian SSR. There, the poem had remained banned in the Brezhnev Era, with Nicolae Lupan threatened and ultimately expelled from the country for having circulated it. Soviet censorship was challenged by Grigore Vieru, who alluded to Doina in subversive poems such as Ridică-te ("Arise") and Eminescu—the latter includes and explicit mention: Doina mi-o furară ("They stole my Doina"). With the onset of Perestroika reforms in the Soviet republic, the magazine Nistru published all versions of Doina in its first issue of 1988, an initiative credited to poet Dumitru Matcovschi. From her home in the Latvian SSR, Maria Macovei-Briedis published the Romanian magazine Glasul, which also took up Doina in 1988. At the Eminescu centennial, some eleven months before the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Doina was publicly quoted in Ceaușescu's own address. As noted by Slama-Cazacu, this message was read out at the Romanian Athenaeum by Emil Bobu, who happened to be "one of [Ceaușescu's] least cultured ministers." At another such event in June 1989, Ceaușescu referred again


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-0.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
Existential risk from artificial intelligence, or AI x-risk, refers to the idea that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could lead to human extinction or an irreversible global catastrophe. One argument for the validity of this concern and the importance of this risk references how human beings dominate other species because the human brain possesses distinctive capabilities other animals lack. If AI were to surpass human intelligence and become superintelligent, it might become uncontrollable. Just as the fate of the mountain gorilla depends on human goodwill, the fate of humanity could depend on the actions of a future machine superintelligence. Experts disagree on whether artificial general intelligence (AGI) can achieve the capabilities needed for human extinction. Debates center on AGI's technical feasibility, the speed of self-improvement, and the effectiveness of alignment strategies. Concerns about superintelligence have been voiced by researchers including Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Demis Hassabis, and Alan Turing, and AI company CEOs such as Dario Amodei (Anthropic), Sam Altman (OpenAI), and Elon Musk (xAI). In 2022, a survey of AI researchers with a 17% response rate found that the majority believed there is a 10 percent or greater chance that human inability to control AI will cause


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-1.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
Let an ultraintelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion', and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control. It is curious that this point is made so seldom outside of science fiction. It is sometimes worthwhile to take science fiction seriously. Scholars such as Marvin Minsky and I. J. Good himself occasionally expressed concern that a superintelligence could seize control, but issued no call to action. In 2000, computer scientist and Sun co-founder Bill Joy penned an influential essay, "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", identifying superintelligent robots as a high-tech danger to human survival, alongside nanotechnology and engineered bioplagues. Nick Bostrom published Superintelligence in 2014, which presented his arguments that superintelligence poses an existential threat. By 2015, public figures such as physicists Stephen Hawking and Nobel laureate Frank


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-2.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
According to Bostrom, an AI that has an expert-level facility at certain key software engineering tasks could become a superintelligence due to its capability to recursively improve its own algorithms, even if it is initially limited in other domains not directly relevant to engineering. This suggests that an intelligence explosion may someday catch humanity unprepared. The economist Robin Hanson has said that, to launch an intelligence explosion, an AI must become vastly better at software innovation than the rest of the world combined, which he finds implausible. In a "fast takeoff" scenario, the transition from AGI to superintelligence could take days or months. In a "slow takeoff", it could take years or decades, leaving more time for society to prepare. ==== Alien mind ==== Superintelligences are sometimes called "alien minds", referring to the idea that their way of thinking and motivations could be vastly different from ours. This is generally considered as a source of risk, making it more difficult to anticipate what a superintelligence might do. It also suggests the possibility that a superintelligence may not particularly value humans by default. To avoid anthropomorphism, superintelligence is sometimes viewed as a powerful optimizer that makes the best decisions to achieve


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-3.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
An existential risk is "one that threatens the premature extinction of Earth-originating intelligent life or the permanent and drastic destruction of its potential for desirable future development". Besides extinction risk, there is the risk that the civilization gets permanently locked into a flawed future. One example is a "value lock-in": If humanity still has moral blind spots similar to slavery in the past, AI might irreversibly entrench it, preventing moral progress. AI could also be used to spread and preserve the set of values of whoever develops it. AI could facilitate large-scale surveillance and indoctrination, which could be used to create a stable repressive worldwide totalitarian regime. Atoosa Kasirzadeh proposes to classify existential risks from AI into two categories: decisive and accumulative. Decisive risks encompass the potential for abrupt and catastrophic events resulting from the emergence of superintelligent AI systems that exceed human intelligence, which could ultimately lead to human extinction. In contrast, accumulative risks emerge gradually through a series of interconnected disruptions that may gradually erode societal structures and resilience over time, ultimately leading to a critical failure or collapse. It is difficult or impossible to reliably evaluate whether an advanced AI is sentient and to what degree. But


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-4.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
As AI systems increase in capabilities, the potential dangers associated with experimentation grow. This makes iterative, empirical approaches increasingly risky. If instrumental goal convergence occurs, it may only do so in sufficiently intelligent agents. A superintelligence may find unconventional and radical solutions to assigned goals. Bostrom gives the example that if the objective is to make humans smile, a weak AI may perform as intended, while a superintelligence may decide a better solution is to "take control of the world and stick electrodes into the facial muscles of humans to cause constant, beaming grins." A superintelligence in creation could gain some awareness of what it is, where it is in development (training, testing, deployment, etc.), and how it is being monitored, and use this information to deceive its handlers. Bostrom writes that such an AI could feign alignment to prevent human interference until it achieves a "decisive strategic advantage" that allows it to take control. Analyzing the internals and interpreting the behavior of LLMs is difficult. And it could be even more difficult for larger and more intelligent models. Alternatively, some find reason to believe superintelligences would be better able to understand morality, human values, and complex goals. Bostrom writes,


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-5.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
Bostrom and others have said that a race to be the first to create AGI could lead to shortcuts in safety, or even to violent conflict. Roman Yampolskiy and others warn that a malevolent AGI could be created by design, for example by a military, a government, a sociopath, or a corporation, to benefit from, control, or subjugate certain groups of people, as in cybercrime, or that a malevolent AGI could choose the goal of increasing human suffering, for example of those people who did not assist it during the information explosion phase.:158 A report by the research group Forethought argued that advanced AI systems could cause political instability by enabling novel methods of performing coups. == Empirical research == A December 2024 study by Apollo Research found that advanced LLMs like OpenAI o1 sometimes deceive in order to accomplish their goal, to prevent them from being changed, or to ensure their deployment. Forms of deception observed in the experimental environment and scenarios included sandbagging, oversight subversion (disabling monitoring mechanisms), self-exfiltration (copying themselves to other systems), goal-guarding (altering future system prompts), and covert email reranking (manipulating data processing while appearing to follow instructions). Researchers noted that OpenAI o1 still lacked


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-6.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
Concern over risk from artificial intelligence has led to some high-profile donations and investments. In 2015, Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services, Musk, and others jointly committed $1 billion to OpenAI, consisting of a for-profit corporation and the nonprofit parent company, which says it aims to champion responsible AI development. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz has funded and seeded multiple labs working on AI Alignment, notably $5.5 million in 2016 to launch the Centre for Human-Compatible AI led by Professor Stuart Russell. In January 2015, Elon Musk donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute to fund research on understanding AI decision making. The institute's goal is to "grow wisdom with which we manage" the growing power of technology. Musk also funds companies developing artificial intelligence such as DeepMind and Vicarious to "just keep an eye on what's going on with artificial intelligence, saying "I think there is potentially a dangerous outcome there." In early statements on the topic, Geoffrey Hinton, a major pioneer of deep learning, noted that "there is not a good track record of less intelligent things controlling things of greater intelligence", but said he continued his research because "the prospect of discovery is too sweet". In 2023


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-7.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
Many scholars concerned about AGI existential risk believe that extensive research into the "control problem" is essential. This problem involves determining which safeguards, algorithms, or architectures can be implemented to increase the likelihood that a recursively-improving AI remains friendly after achieving superintelligence. Social measures are also proposed to mitigate AGI risks, such as a UN-sponsored "Benevolent AGI Treaty" to ensure that only altruistic AGIs are created. Additionally, an arms control approach and a global peace treaty grounded in international relations theory have been suggested, potentially for an artificial superintelligence to be a signatory. Researchers at Google have proposed research into general AI safety issues to simultaneously mitigate both short-term risks from narrow AI and long-term risks from AGI. A 2020 estimate places global spending on AI existential risk somewhere between $10 and $50 million, compared with global spending on AI around perhaps $40 billion. Bostrom suggests prioritizing funding for protective technologies over potentially dangerous ones. Some, like Elon Musk, advocate radical human cognitive enhancement, such as direct neural linking between humans and machines; others argue that these technologies may pose an existential risk themselves. Another proposed method is closely monitoring or "boxing in" an early-stage AI to prevent it from


id: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence-8.md
category: reference
title: Existential risk from artificial intelligence
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_risk_from_artificial_intelligence
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:29.028395+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: existential-risk-from-artificial-intelligence-20260505-0
summary:
Under the framework of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, states have discussed lethal autonomous weapon systems since 2014. In 2016, the treaty's parties established an open-ended Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems to continue those discussions. The discussions have addressed international humanitarian law, accountability, possible prohibitions and regulations, and the extent of human control required over AI-enabled weapons. In March 2023, the Future of Life Institute drafted Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter, a petition calling on major AI developers to agree on a verifiable six-month pause of any systems "more powerful than GPT-4" and to use that time to institute a framework for ensuring safety; or, failing that, for governments to step in with a moratorium. The letter referred to the possibility of "a profound change in the history of life on Earth" as well as potential risks of AI-generated propaganda, loss of jobs, human obsolescence, and society-wide loss of control. The letter was signed by prominent personalities in AI but also criticized for not focusing on current harms, missing technical nuance about when to pause, or not going far enough. Such concerns have led to the creation of PauseAI, an advocacy group organizing


id: frankenstein-complex-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_complex-0.md
category: reference
title: Frankenstein complex
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_complex
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:30.213165+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: frankenstein-complex-20260505-0
summary:
The Frankenstein complex is a term coined by Isaac Asimov in his robot series, referring to the fear of mechanical men. == History == Some of Asimov's science fiction short stories and novels predict that this suspicion will become strongest and most widespread in respect of "mechanical men" that most-closely resemble human beings (see android), but it is also present on a lower level against robots that are plainly electromechanical automatons. The "Frankenstein complex" is similar in many respects to Masahiro Mori's uncanny valley hypothesis. The name, "Frankenstein complex", is derived from the name of Victor Frankenstein in the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. In Shelley's story, Frankenstein created an intelligent, somewhat superhuman being, but he finds that his creation is horrifying to behold and abandons it. This ultimately leads to Victor's death at the conclusion of a vendetta between himself and his creation. In much of his fiction, Asimov depicts the general attitude of the public towards robots as negative, with ordinary people fearing that robots will either replace them or dominate them, although dominance would not be allowed under the specifications of the Three Laws of Robotics, the first of which is: "A


id: industrial-society-and-its-future-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future-0.md
category: reference
title: Industrial Society and Its Future
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:31.370948+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: industrial-society-and-its-future-20260505-0
summary:
Industrial Society and Its Future, also known as the Unabomber Manifesto, is a 1995 anti-technology essay by Ted Kaczynski. The manifesto contends that the Industrial Revolution began a harmful process of natural destruction brought about by technology, while forcing humans to adapt to machinery, creating a sociopolitical order that suppresses human potential and freedom. The roughly 35,000-word manifesto formed the ideological foundation of Kaczynski's 1978–1995 mail bomb campaign, designed to protect wilderness by hastening the collapse of industrial society. The manifesto states that the public largely accepts individual technological advancements as purely positive without accounting for their overall effect, including the erosion of local and individual freedom and autonomy. It was printed in September 1995 in a special supplement to The Washington Post after Kaczynski offered to suspend his bombing campaign if his manifesto was widely circulated. Attorney General Janet Reno authorized the printing to help the FBI identify the author. The printing of, and publicity around, the manifesto eclipsed the bombings in notoriety and led to the identification of the Unabomber by Ted's brother David Kaczynski and his wife. == Impact == While Kaczynski's actions were generally condemned, his manifesto expressed ideas that continue to be generally shared among


id: industrial-society-and-its-future-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future-1.md
category: reference
title: Industrial Society and Its Future
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:31.370948+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: industrial-society-and-its-future-20260505-0
summary:
=== Influences === Industrial Society and Its Future echoes contemporary critics of technology and industrialization such as John Zerzan, Jacques Ellul, Rachel Carson, Lewis Mumford, and E. F. Schumacher. Its idea of the "disruption of the power process" similarly echoed social critics who emphasize that the lack of meaningful work is a primary cause of social problems, including Mumford, Paul Goodman, and Eric Hoffer. Aldous Huxley addressed its general theme in Brave New World, to which Kaczynski refers in his text. Kaczynski's ideas of "oversocialization" and "surrogate activities" recall Sigmund Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents and its theories of rationalization and sublimation (a term which Kaczynski uses three times to describe "surrogate activities"). However, a 2021 study by Sean Fleming shows that many of these similarities are coincidental. Kaczynski had not read Lewis Mumford, Paul Goodman, or John Zerzan until after he submitted Industrial Society and Its Future to The New York Times and The Washington Post. There is no evidence that he read Freud, Carson, or Schumacher. Instead, Fleming argues, Industrial Society and Its Future "is a synthesis of ideas from [...] French philosopher Jacques Ellul, British zoologist Desmond Morris, and American psychologist Martin Seligman." Kaczynski's understanding of technology,


id: industrial-society-and-its-future-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future-2.md
category: reference
title: Industrial Society and Its Future
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_Future
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:31.370948+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: industrial-society-and-its-future-20260505-0
summary:
We give up a piece of ourselves whenever we adjust to conform to society's standards. That, and we're too plugged in. We're letting technology take over our lives, willingly. In 2018, New York magazine stated that the manifesto generated later interest from environmentalists, and anarcho-primitivists. In December 2020, a man who was arrested at Charleston International Airport on a charge of "conveying false information regarding attempted use of a destructive device" after he falsely threatened that he had a bomb, was found to have been carrying the Unabomber manifesto. Although Kaczynski himself described fascism as "evil", the manifesto is popular among Ecofascists. According to Professor Michael Loadenthal there has been “Siege-ification of the deep green” and Industrial Society and Its Future is widely shared in the Terrorgram community. The suspect in the killing of Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione, was suspected by the police to have been inspired by the manifesto. Mangione had posted a Goodreads review of the manifesto, giving four stars out of five, however also describing Kaczynski as "rightfully imprisoned" and criticizing his use of violence against innocent individuals. === Reprints and further work === Feral House republished the manifesto in Kaczynski's first book, the 2010 Technological Slavery,


id: luddite-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-0.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:32.609938+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids. Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials. The Luddite movement began in Nottingham, England, and spread to the North West and Yorkshire between 1811 and 1816. Mill and factory owners took to shooting protesters and eventually the movement was suppressed by legal and military force, which included execution and penal transportation of accused and convicted Luddites. Over time, the term has been used to refer to those opposed to the introduction of new technologies. == Etymology == The name Luddite ( LUD-ite) occurs in the movement's writings as early as 1811. The movement utilised the eponym of Ned Ludd, an apocryphal apprentice who allegedly smashed two stocking frames in 1779 after being criticised and instructed to change his method. The name often appears as Captain, General, or King Ludd. Different versions of the legends


id: luddite-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-1.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:32.609938+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
The Luddite movement emerged during the harsh economic climate of the Napoleonic Wars, which saw a rise in difficult working conditions in the new textile factories paired with decreasing birth rates and a rise in education standards in England and Wales. Luddites were not opposed to the use of machines per se (many were skilled operators in the textile industry); they attacked manufacturers who were trying to circumvent standard labour practices of the time. The movement began in Arnold, Nottinghamshire, on 11 March 1811 and spread rapidly throughout England over the following two years. The British economy suffered greatly in 1810 to 1812, especially in terms of high unemployment and inflation. The causes included the high cost of the wars with Napoleon, Napoleon's Continental System of economic warfare, and escalating conflict with the United States. The crisis led to widespread protest and violence, but the middle classes and upper classes strongly supported the government, which used the army to suppress all working-class unrest, especially the Luddite movement. The Luddites met at night on the moors surrounding industrial towns to practise military-like drills and manoeuvres. Their main areas of operation began in Nottinghamshire in November 1811, followed by the West Riding


id: luddite-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-2.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:32.609938+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
== Legacy == The Luddites (specifically the croppers, those who operated cropping machinery) are memorialised in the Yorkshire-area folk song "The Cropper Lads", which has been recorded by artists including Lou Killen and Maddy Prior. The croppers were very highly skilled and highly paid before the introduction of cropping machinery, and thus had more to lose and more reason to rebel against the factory owners' use of machinery. Another traditional song which celebrates the Luddites is the song "The Triumph of General Ludd", which was recorded by Chumbawamba for their 1988 album English Rebel Songs. == Modern usage == Nowadays, the term "Luddite" is often used to describe someone who either opposes or is resistant to the use of new technologies. In 1956, during a British Parliamentary debate, a Labour spokesman said that "organised workers were by no means wedded to a 'Luddite Philosophy'." By 2006, the term neo-Luddism had emerged to describe opposition to many forms of technology. According to a manifesto drawn up by the Second Luddite Congress (April 1996; Barnesville, Ohio), neo-Luddism is "a leaderless movement of passive resistance to consumerism and the increasingly bizarre and frightening technologies of the Computer Age". The term "Luddite fallacy" is


id: luddite-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite-3.md
category: reference
title: Luddite
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:32.609938+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: luddite-20260505-0
summary:
== Further reading == Anderson, Gary M.; Tollison, Robert D. (1986). "Luddism as cartel enforcement". Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE)/Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft. 142 (4): 727–738. JSTOR 40750927. Archer, John E. (2000). "Chapter 4: Industrial Protest". Social unrest and popular protest in England, 1780–1840. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57656-7. Bailey, Brian J. (1998). The Luddite Rebellion. NYU Press. ISBN 0-8147-1335-1. Darvall, F. (1934). Popular Disturbances and Public Order in Regency England. Oxford University Press. Dinwiddy, John (1979). "Luddism and politics in the northern counties". Social History. 4 (1): 33–63. doi:10.1080/03071027908567438. Fox, Nicols (2003). Against the Machine: The Hidden Luddite History in Literature, Art, and Individual Lives. Island Press. ISBN 1-55963-860-5. Grint, Keith; Woolgar, Steve (1997). "The Luddites: Diablo ex Machina". The machine at work: technology, work, and organization. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-7456-0924-9. Haywood, Ian (2006). "Unruly People: The Spectacular Riot". Bloody Romanticism. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 181–222. Horn, Jeff (2015). "Machine-Breaking and the 'Threat from Below' in Great Britain and France during the Early Industrial Revolution". Crowd actions in Britain and France from the middle ages to the modern world. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 165–178. Linebaugh, Peter (2012). Ned Ludd & Queen Mab: machine-breaking, romanticism, and the several


id: neo-luddism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism-0.md
category: reference
title: Neo-Luddism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:33.806866+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: neo-luddism-20260505-0
summary:
Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology. The term Luddite is generally used as a pejorative applied to people showing technophobic leanings. The name is based on the historical legacy of the English Luddites, who were active between 1811 and 1817. While the original Luddites were mostly concerned with the economic implications of improving technology in regard to industrialization, neo-Luddites tend to have a broader and more holistic distrust of technological improvement. Neo-Luddism is a leaderless movement of non-affiliated groups that resist modern technologies and dictate a return of some or all technologies to a more primitive level. Neo-Luddites are characterized by one or more of the following practices: passively abandoning the use of technology, protesting technology harmful to the environment, advocating simple living, or sabotaging technology. The modern neo-Luddite movement has connections with the anti-globalization movement, anarcho-primitivism, radical environmentalism, and deep ecology. Neo-Luddism is based on the concern of the technological impact on individuals, their communities, and/or the environment. Neo-Luddism stipulates the use of the precautionary principle for all new technologies, insisting that technologies be proven safe before adoption, due to the unknown effects that new technologies might inspire. == Philosophy == In


id: neo-luddism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism-1.md
category: reference
title: Neo-Luddism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Luddism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:33.806866+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: neo-luddism-20260505-0
summary:
In May 2012, credit for the shooting of Roberto Adinolfi, an Ansaldo Nucleare executive, was claimed by an anarchist group who targeted him for stating that none of the deaths following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami were caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster itself: Adinolfi knows well that it is only a matter of time before a European Fukushima kills on our continent [...] Science in centuries past promised us a golden age, but it is pushing us towards self destruction and slavery [...] With our action we give back to you a small part of the suffering that you scientists are bringing to the world. The American terrorist Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, initially sabotaged developments near his cabin but dedicated himself to getting back at the system after discovering a road had been built over a plateau he had considered beautiful. Between 1978 and 1995, Kaczynski engaged in a nationwide bombing campaign against modern technology, planting or mailing numerous home-made bombs, killing three people and injuring 23 others. In his 1995 work Industrial Society and Its Future, Kaczynski states: The kind of revolution we have in mind will not necessarily involve an armed uprising


id: road-to-nowhere-book-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Nowhere_(book)-0.md
category: reference
title: Road to Nowhere (book)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_to_Nowhere_(book)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:34.981524+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: road-to-nowhere-book-20260505-0
summary:
Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation is a 2022 non-fiction book by Canadian author Paris Marx. == Summary == The book covers a number of emerging technologies in mass transportation, particularly those that have been widely advocated for by corporations in Silicon Valley, such as ridesharing companies, electric cars, and the Hyperloop. Analysing those technologies, Marx criticises the vision of transportation put forward by Silicon Valley corporations, saying that they fail to resolve many of the issues facing mass transportation, such as environmental and cost-of-living concerns. Marx further advocates for a greater emphasis on collective methods to tackle those issues instead, including public transportation and more democratic urban planning. == Reception == Alastair Dalton of The Scotsman said the book offers "a nightmarish vision of the direction in which technology is taking transport" and "underlines the extraordinary toll exacted by motor vehicles." Rob Larson of Jacobin noted that there were some relevant topics that Marx failed to discuss, namely the use of private jets, but that the book was a "fun read" that "pairs brutally realistic analysis with a consummately Canadian level of indictment." Matthew James Seidel of Protean Magazine described the book


id: ship-of-fools-short-story-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(short_story)-0.md
category: reference
title: Ship of Fools (short story)
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Fools_(short_story)
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:36.151216+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: ship-of-fools-short-story-20260505-0
summary:
"Ship of Fools" is a 1999 short story by Ted Kaczynski. The story is a parable demonstrating Kaczynski's views that identity politics within liberalism is a distraction from the issue of climate apocalypse and that revolutionary violence is justified. == About == "Ship of Fools" was written for Off!, a student magazine at State University of New York (SUNY) in Binghamton, New York. It was written at the request of Tom LaPietra, a student at SUNY. The story also appeared on the website for Context Books. It is 11 pages long. Kaczynski wrote the parable from prison. The short story is about a ship that is headed north to the Arctic Ocean. Despite the presence of dangerous icebergs, the crew pay no attention to the wellbeing of the ship as they are too busy arguing among themselves about various injustices. The crew includes a Mexican sailor, a Native American sailor, a gay bosun, an animal rights activist, and a female passenger. The Mexican sailor asks for equal pay, the Native American sailor asks for reparations for losing his ancestral land, the gay bosun objects to homophobic slurs and asks for the "right to suck cocks without being called names for


id: sonnet-to-science-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_to_Science-0.md
category: reference
title: Sonnet to Science
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_to_Science
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:37.343966+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: sonnet-to-science-20260505-0
summary:
"Sonnet to Science" (originally "Sonnet — To Science") is an 1829 poem by Edgar Allan Poe, published in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. == Summary == Poe asks why science preys on the poet. Science is peering, destructive and interested only in cold realities. It will not allow the poet to soar in fantasy or even to sit peacefully dreaming beneath a tree. == Publication history == In mid-November 1829, Poe agreed with the Baltimore firm Hatch and Dunning to publish his second volume of poetry, entitled Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems. This volume was the first instance in which Poe published his verse under his own name as opposed to his first publication, Tamerlane and Other Poems, which was only attributed to “a Bostonian”. A later published version of this poem includes the following note, “Private reasons—some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and other to the date of Tennyson’s first poems—have induced me, after some hesitation, to re-publish these, the crude compositions of my earliest boyhood. They are printed verbatim—without alteration from the original edition—the date of which is too remote to be judiciously acknowledged.” == References == == External links == An


id: technological-slavery-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Slavery-0.md
category: reference
title: Technological Slavery
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Slavery
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:39.612714+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: technological-slavery-20260505-0
summary:
Technological Slavery (published in its first edition as The Road to Revolution) is a 2008 non-fiction book by the American Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, that expands on his personal philosophy and beliefs regarding technology and freedom. == Summary == In it, Kaczynski continues the critique of modern technological society that he began with his 1995 manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future. The book serves as a compendium of his thoughts and philosophies on technology, freedom, and the impacts of societal progression on individual autonomy. The book includes Kaczynski's correspondence with various intellectuals, his responses to criticism, and further elaboration on the themes of technological dominance and its opposition. It has been a subject of considerable debate and analysis within academic and technological ethics circles. == Publication history == The first edition was published in 2008 by the French publishing company Editions Xenia under the title The Road to Revolution. The second edition was published with the new title Technological Slavery: The Collected Writings of Theodore J. Kaczynski, a.k.a. "The Unabomber" in 2010 by the American publishing company Feral House; the contents of this edition remained the same as the 2008 edition. The third edition was published as


id: technological-slavery-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Slavery-1.md
category: reference
title: Technological Slavery
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_Slavery
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:39.612714+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: technological-slavery-20260505-0
summary:
=== Postscript to "Industrial Society and Its Future" === The postscript to the manifesto is dated 2007. In it, Kaczynski addresses in brief the criticisms the manifesto received after its publication, as well as its significance. Kaczynski answers the claim that the manifesto is "unoriginal" by stating it was never intended to be original. Its purpose was "to set forth certain points about modern technology in clear and relatively brief form". Kaczynski then claims that the claim of originality or unoriginality is irrelevant to the problem of modern technology, which is of paramount importance. Kaczynski claims that many intellectuals would not deny that there is a technology problem, but that they universally refuse to discuss it. The technology problem is "simply ignored". As with the manifesto, Kaczynski states that no claims of originality are made for the book itself; though Kaczynski suggests that his originality stems from his approach to revolution as a practical possibility to solve the problem of modern technology. Some serious thinkers have suggested revolution as an approach to take, such as Jacques Ellul in his book Autopsy of a Revolution, but the kind of revolution envisioned by Ellul is "vague" and "spiritual" according to Kaczynski, whereas


id: a-thing-about-machines-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thing_About_Machines-0.md
category: reference
title: A Thing About Machines
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Thing_About_Machines
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:40.797620+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: a-thing-about-machines-20260505-0
summary:
"A Thing About Machines" is episode 40 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. It originally aired on October 28, 1960, on CBS. == Opening narration == This is Mr. Bartlett Finchley, age forty-eight, a practicing sophisticate who writes very special and very precious things for gourmet magazines and the like. He's a bachelor and a recluse with few friends, only devotees and adherents to the cause of tart sophistry. He has no interests save whatever current annoyances he can put his mind to. He has no purpose to his life except the formulation of day-to-day opportunities to vent his wrath on mechanical contrivances of an age he abhors. In short, Mr. Bartlett Finchley is a malcontent, born either too late or too early in the century, and who, in just a moment, will enter a realm where muscles and the will to fight back are not limited to human beings. Next stop for Mr. Bartlett Finchley - The Twilight Zone. == Plot == Lonely, ill-tempered gourmet magazine critic and misanthrope Bartlett Finchley berates a repairman after the latter fixes his television and tells him to stop abusing his appliances over mild inconveniences. Believing the machines are conspiring


id: uncanny-valley-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley-0.md
category: reference
title: Uncanny valley
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:41.964000+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: uncanny-valley-20260505-0
summary:
The uncanny valley effect is a hypothesized psychological and aesthetic relation between an object's degree of resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to the object. The uncanny valley hypothesis predicts that an entity appearing almost human will elicit uncanny or eerie feelings in viewers. Examples of the phenomenon exist among robots, animatronics, and lifelike dolls as well as visuals produced by 3D computer animation and predominately artificial intelligence. The increasing prevalence of digital technologies (e.g., virtual reality, augmented reality, and photorealistic computer animation) and their increasing verisimilitude have prompted debate about "the valley." == Etymology == As related to robotics engineering, robotics professor Masahiro Mori first introduced the concept in 1970 from his book titled Bukimi No Tani (不気味の谷), phrasing it as bukimi no tani genshō (不気味の谷現象; lit. 'uncanny valley phenomenon'). Bukimi no tani was translated literally as uncanny valley in the 1978 book Robots: Fact, Fiction, and Prediction written by Jasia Reichardt. Over time, this translation created an unintended association of the concept to Ernst Jentsch's psychoanalytic concept of the uncanny established in his 1906 essay "On the Psychology of the Uncanny" (German: Zur Psychologie des Unheimlichen), which was then critiqued and extended in Sigmund Freud's


id: uncanny-valley-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley-1.md
category: reference
title: Uncanny valley
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:41.964000+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: uncanny-valley-20260505-0
summary:
Mate selection: Automatic, stimulus-driven appraisals of uncanny stimuli elicit aversion by activating an evolved cognitive mechanism for the avoidance of selecting mates with low fertility, poor hormonal health, or ineffective immune systems based on visible features of the face and body that are predictive of those traits. Mortality salience: Viewing an "uncanny" robot elicits an innate fear of death and culturally supported defenses for coping with death's inevitability.... [P]artially disassembled androids...play on subconscious fears of reduction, replacement, and annihilation: (1) A mechanism with a human façade and a mechanical interior plays on our subconscious fear that we are all just soulless machines. (2) Androids in various states of mutilation, decapitation, or disassembly are reminiscent of a battlefield after a conflict and, as such, serve as a reminder of our mortality. (3) Since most androids are copies of actual people, they are doppelgängers and may elicit a fear of being replaced, on the job, in a relationship, and so on. (4) The jerkiness of an android's movements could be unsettling because it elicits a fear of losing bodily control. Pathogen avoidance: Uncanny stimuli may activate a cognitive mechanism that originally evolved to motivate the avoidance of potential sources of pathogens by


id: uncanny-valley-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley-2.md
category: reference
title: Uncanny valley
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:41.964000+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: uncanny-valley-20260505-0
summary:
=== Research === A series of studies experimentally investigated whether uncanny valley effects exist for static images of robot faces. Mathur MB & Reichling DB used two complementary sets of stimuli spanning the range from very mechanical to very human-like: first, a sample of 80 objectively chosen robot face images from Internet searches, and second, a morphometrically and graphically controlled 6-face series set of faces. They asked subjects to explicitly rate the likability of each face. To measure trust toward each face, subjects completed an investment game to measure indirectly how much money they were willing to "wager" on a robot's trustworthiness. Both stimulus sets showed a robust uncanny valley effect on explicitly rated likability and a more context-dependent uncanny valley on implicitly rated trust. Their exploratory analysis of one proposed mechanism for the uncanny valley, perceptual confusion at a category boundary, found that category confusion occurs in the uncanny valley but does not mediate the effect on social and emotional responses. One study conducted in 2009 examined the evolutionary mechanism behind the aversion associated with the uncanny valley. A group of five monkeys were shown three images: two different 3D monkey faces (realistic, unrealistic), and a real photo of


id: uncanny-valley-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley-3.md
category: reference
title: Uncanny valley
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:41.964000+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: uncanny-valley-20260505-0
summary:
Design elements should match in human realism. A robot may look uncanny when human and nonhuman elements are mixed. For example, both a robot with a synthetic voice or a human being with a human voice have been found to be less eerie than a robot with a human voice or a human being with a synthetic voice. For a robot to give a more positive impression, its degree of human realism in appearance should also match its degree of human realism in behavior. If an animated character looks more human than its movement, this gives a negative impression. Human neuroimaging studies also indicate matching appearance and motion kinematics are important. Reducing conflict and uncertainty by matching appearance, behavior, and ability. In terms of performance, if a robot looks too appliance-like, people expect little from it; if it looks too human, people expect too much from it. A highly human-like appearance leads to an expectation that certain behaviors are present, such as humanlike motion dynamics. This likely operates at a sub-conscious level and may have a biological basis. Neuroscientists have noted "when the brain's expectations are not met, the brain...generates a 'prediction error'. As human-like artificial agents become more commonplace,


id: uncanny-valley-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley-4.md
category: reference
title: Uncanny valley
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:41.964000+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: uncanny-valley-20260505-0
summary:
The expression of this [Trigonocephalus] snake's face was hideous and fierce; the pupil consisted of a vertical slit in a mottled and coppery iris; the jaws were broad at the base, and the nose terminated in a triangular projection. I do not think I ever saw anything more ugly, excepting, perhaps, some of the vampire bats. I imagine this repulsive aspect originates from the features being placed in positions, with respect to each other, somewhat proportional to the human face; and thus we obtain a scale of hideousness. A similar "uncanny valley" effect could, according to the ethical-futurist writer Jamais Cascio, show up when humans begin modifying themselves with transhuman enhancements (cf. body modification), which aim to improve the abilities of the human body beyond what would normally be possible, be it eyesight, muscle strength, or cognition. So long as these enhancements remain within a perceived norm of human behavior, a negative reaction is unlikely, but once individuals supplant normal human variety, revulsion can be expected. However, according to this theory, once such technologies gain further distance from human norms, "transhuman" individuals would cease to be judged on human levels and instead be regarded as separate entities altogether (this point


id: uncanny-valley-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley-5.md
category: reference
title: Uncanny valley
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:41.964000+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: uncanny-valley-20260505-0
summary:
=== Virtual actors === An increasingly common practice is to feature virtual actors in movies: CGI likenesses of real actors used because the original actor either looks too old for the part or is deceased. Sometimes a virtual actor is created with involvement from the original actor (who may contribute motion capture, audio, etc.), while at other times the actor has no involvement. Reviewers have often criticized the use of virtual actors for its uncanny valley effect, saying it adds an eerie feeling to the movie. Examples of virtual actors that have received such criticism include replicas of Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator Salvation (2009) and Terminator Genisys (2015), Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy (2010), Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher in Rogue One (2016), and Will Smith in Gemini Man (2019). == See also == == References == === Citations === === General and cited sources === == External links == Miklósi, Ádám; Korondi, Péter; Matellán, Vicente; Gácsi, Márta (2017). "Ethorobotics: A New Approach to Human-Robot Relationship". Frontiers in Psychology. 8 958. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00958. PMC 5465277. PMID 28649213. Your Brain on Androids UCSD news release about human brain and the uncanny valley. Views on the Uncanny Valley Almost too human and lifelike


id: westworld-season-1-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_1-0.md
category: reference
title: Westworld season 1
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_1
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:43.213182+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: westworld-season-1-20260505-0
summary:
The first season of the American science fiction western television series Westworld, subtitled The Maze, premiered on HBO on October 2, 2016, and concluded on December 4, 2016, consisting of ten episodes. The television series was created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and it is based on the 1973 film of the same name, written and directed by Michael Crichton. The first season stars an ensemble cast led by Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, James Marsden, Ed Harris, and Anthony Hopkins. The first season received critical acclaim, with particular praise for the visuals, story, and performances. The series received seven nominations at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards, including for Outstanding Drama Series; however, the series did not win in any category. == Plot summary == Westworld's co-founder Robert Ford implements a change in the hosts' programming ostensibly as part of a new narrative for the park, but meant to encourage the park's oldest operating host, Dolores Abernathy, to find the proverbial "center of the maze", which represents the ability to achieve sentience. Host sentience was the goal of deceased co-founder Arnold Weber and later, Ford himself. Other hosts are affected by this change, creating confusion among the


id: westworld-season-1-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_1-1.md
category: reference
title: Westworld season 1
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_1
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:43.213182+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: westworld-season-1-20260505-0
summary:
On December 29, 2014, Ramin Djawadi was selected to be the composer of the show, having previously worked with Jonathan Nolan on the American series Person of Interest. For the creation of the main theme, Djawadi blended the use of bass notes, light arpeggios and melody, hoping to complement the idea of an amusement park as the show's main theme. While the soundtrack featured original songs for the show, Djawadi also composed covers of several popular songs for player piano and strings. The songs that are covered for the soundtrack are Radiohead's "No Surprises", "Fake Plastic Trees", "Motion Picture Soundtrack" and "Exit Music (For a Film)"; Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun"; The Rolling Stones' "Paint It Black"; Claude Debussy's "Reverie for piano, L.68"; "A Forest" by The Cure; The Animals' version of "The House of the Rising Sun"; Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black", and Nine Inch Nails' "Something I Can Never Have". The soundtrack was released on December 5, 2016. == Reception == === Critical response === Reception of the first season has been largely positive, with particular praise for the visuals, story, and performances. On the review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the first season has an approval rating of 87%


id: westworld-season-2-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_2-0.md
category: reference
title: Westworld season 2
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_2
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:44.516823+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: westworld-season-2-20260505-0
summary:
The second season of the American science fiction western television series Westworld, subtitled The Door, premiered on HBO on April 22, 2018, and concluded on June 24, 2018, consisting of ten episodes. The television series was created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, and it is based on the 1973 film of the same name, written and directed by Michael Crichton. The second season stars an ensemble cast led by Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright, James Marsden, Tessa Thompson, and Ed Harris. The second season has received positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for the performances. However, it received criticism for its plot, which was said to be confusing. == Plot summary == After killing Dr. Ford at the end of season one, Dolores converts and leads the other hosts in killing many of the other guests in the few weeks that follow. She seeks to find a way to get out of the park to continue her revenge, and knows she must recover her father Peter's "pearl" to do so and unlock Westworld's true secrets with it. Charlotte Hale, who was attempting to smuggle Westworld data through Peter, also seeks the host as she cannot call


id: westworld-season-2-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_2-1.md
category: reference
title: Westworld season 2
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld_season_2
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:44.516823+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: westworld-season-2-20260505-0
summary:
Critics received the first five episodes of the season as screeners before the first episode premiered. In a positive review for San Francisco Chronicle, David Wiegand wrote, "there is plenty of action and violence in the first half of the season, but what will empower the show's longevity is its metaphysical theme, the exploration of the meaning and definition of human existence." Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also praised the series, saying, "It takes a bit for Westworld to get back up to full steam, but by episode three (five hours were made available to TV critics), this futuristic, violent drama returns to fine form, introducing new parts of the park (Shogun World!), new characters and apparently new technology goals on the part of Delos, the corporation that owns Westworld." Journalist Lorraine Ali of the Los Angeles Times said, "It's poised to be a intellectually stimulating and emotionally bumpy ride, where the very concept of your existence becomes the stuff of high-brow entertainment and low-bar thrills." The New York Times TV critic James Poniewozik quipped, "don't expect too much improvement too fast from Westworld 2.0. It's still overly focused on balletic blood baths and narrative fake-outs, and much of


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-0.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
Anti-vaccine activism, which collectively constitutes the "anti-vax" or "anti-vaxx" movement, is a set of organized activities expressing opposition to vaccination. These collaborating networks often seek to increase vaccine hesitancy by disseminating vaccine misinformation and disinformation. As a social movement, it employs tools ranging from traditional news media to various forms of online communication. Activists have primarily—though not exclusively—focused on opposing childhood vaccination, and have sought to expand their influence from niche subgroups into national political debates. Ideas that later coalesced into anti-vaccine activism predate vaccines themselves. The movement, along with fringe doctors, has propagated various myths and conspiracy theories, alongside misinformation and disinformation. These efforts have significantly increased vaccine hesitancy and influenced public policy regarding the ethical, legal, and medical aspects of vaccination. In contrast, there is no substantive debate or hesitancy within mainstream medical circles about the benefits of vaccination; the scientific consensus is "clear and unambiguous" in favor of vaccines. Despite this consensus, the anti-vaccine movement has been partially successful in distorting the public understanding of science in popular culture. == History == === 18th and 19th century === Ideas that would eventually coalesce into anti-vaccine activism have existed for longer than vaccines themselves. Some philosophical approaches (e.g.


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-1.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
==== Anti-Vaccination Society of America ==== In the United States, many states and local school boards established immunization requirements, beginning with a compulsory school vaccination law in Massachusetts in 1855. The Anti-Vaccination Society of America was founded in 1879, after a visit to the United States by British anti-vaccine activist William Tebb, and opposed compulsory smallpox vaccination for smallpox from the final decades of the 19th century through the 1910s. During this period, smallpox vaccination was the only form of vaccination that was widely practiced, and the society published a periodical opposing it, called Vaccination. A series of American legal cases, beginning in various states and culminating with that of Henning Jacobson of Massachusetts in 1905, upheld the mandating of compulsory smallpox vaccination for the good of the public. The court ruled in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that "the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good". ==== London Society for the Abolition of Compulsory Vaccination ====


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-2.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
Anti-vaccine activism in the 2000s regained prominence through exploratory research by Andrew Wakefield based on 12 selected cases. He then made claims about a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. These claims were subsequently extensively investigated and found to be false, and the original study turned out to be based on faked data. The scientific consensus is that there is no link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and that the MMR vaccine's benefits in preventing measles, mumps, and rubella greatly outweigh its potential risks. The idea of an autism link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 Lancet MMR autism fraud, which Dennis K Flaherty at the University of Charleston characterized as "perhaps the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years". The fraudulent research paper authored by Wakefield and published in The Lancet falsely claimed the vaccine was linked to colitis and autism spectrum disorders. The paper was retracted by Lancet in 2010 but is still cited by anti-vaccine activists. The claims in the paper were widely reported, leading to a sharp drop in vaccination rates in the UK and Ireland. Promotion of the


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-3.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
==== 2019 and 2025 measles outbreaks ==== Vaccine hesitancy led to declining rates of vaccination for measles, culminating in the 2019–2020 measles outbreaks. The most significant of these, in proportion to the national population, was the 2019 Samoa measles outbreak. In July 2018, two 12-month-old children died in Samoa after receiving incorrectly prepared MMR vaccinations. These two deaths were picked up by anti-vaccine groups and used to incite fear towards vaccination on social media, causing the government to suspend its measles vaccination programme for ten months, despite advice from the WHO. The incident caused many Samoan residents to lose trust in the healthcare system. UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate that the measles vaccination rate in Samoa fell from 74% in 2017 to 34% in 2018, similar to some of the poorest countries in Africa. In August 2019, an infected passenger on one of the more than 8,000 annual flights between New Zealand and Samoa probably brought the disease from Auckland to Upolu. A full outbreak of measles began on the island in October 2019 and continued for the next four months. As of January 6, 2020, there were over 5,700 cases of measles and 83 deaths, out of


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-4.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
=== Misrepresentation === In some instances, anti-vaccine organizations have used names intended to sound non-partisan on the issue: e.g. National Vaccine Information Center (USA), Vaccination Risk Awareness Network (Canada), Australian Vaccination Network. In November 2013 the Australian Vaccination Network was ordered by the New South Wales Administrative Decisions Tribunal to change their name so that consumers are aware of the anti-vaccination nature of the group. Lateline reported that former AVN president Meryl Dorey "claimed she was a victim of hate groups and vested interests" in response to the ruling. === Information quality === Although physicians and nurses are still rated as the most trusted source for vaccine information, some vaccine-hesitant individuals report being more comfortable discussing vaccines with providers of complementary and alternative medical (CAM) treatments. With the rise of the internet, many people have turned online for medical information. In some instances, anti-vaccine activists seek to steer people away from vaccination and health-care providers and towards alternative medicines sold by certain activists. Anti-vaccination writings on the internet have been argued to be characterized by a number of differences from medical and scientific literature. These include: Promiscuous copying and reduplication. Ignoring corrections, even when an initial report or data point


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-5.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
=== Use of misinformation in Philippine anti-vaccine activism === Anti-vaccine activism in the Philippines has been amplified through social media platforms such as Facebook, where misinformation spreads widely among low-income users with "free Facebook" access. Online groups like "NO TO VACCINE – PHILIPPINES" propagate messages about vaccine harms, while emotionally charged narratives rooted in the 2017 Dengvaxia controversy continue to undermine public trust in immunization programs. Health activists and pro-vaccine groups have pushed back: for instance, the Vaccine Solidarity Movement called on media outlets to stop amplifying unscientific anti-vax views and to rely on qualified experts. Misinformation about vaccine brands (such as Sinovac) and perceived regulatory failures contributes to hesitancy, a tactic leveraged by anti-vaxxers to sow doubt. In addition, some disinformation campaigns have geopolitical dimensions: a covert campaign reportedly run by the U.S. military in the Philippines spread fears that Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines were unsafe. Community-level mistrust is also fueled by moral panic and institutional distrust. Ethnographic studies among Filipino parents document how fear from past vaccine controversies, such as Dengvaxia, continues to resonate in discussions about routine immunization. At the same time, negative vaccine narratives garner strong engagement: a content analysis of YouTube comments on national TV vaccination


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-6.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
== Countering anti-vaccine activism == Various efforts have been suggested and undertaken to address concerns about vaccines and counter anti-vaccine disinformation. Efforts include social media advertising campaigns, by public health organizations, in support of public health goals. Best practices for combating vaccine mis- and disinformation include addressing issues openly, clearly identifying areas of scientific consensus and areas of uncertainty, and being sensitive to the cultural and religious values of communities. In countering anti-vaccine disinformation, both factual and emotional aspects need to be addressed. Whether people will update a mistaken belief is complicated and involves psychological factors and social goals as well as accuracy of information. There is some evidence that both debunking and "pre-bunking" of disinformation can be effective, at least in the short term. Elements that may help to correct inaccurate information include: warning people before they are exposed to misinformation; high perceived credibility of message sources, affirmations of identity and social norms; graphical presentation; and focusing attention on clear core messages. Alternative explanations of a situation need to fit plausibly into the original scenario and ideally indicate why the incorrect explanation was previously thought to be correct. The cultivation of critical thinking, health and science awareness, and media


id: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism-7.md
category: reference
title: Anti-vaccine activism
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-vaccine_activism
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:46.395880+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: anti-vaccine-activism-20260505-0
summary:
=== Community engagement === Steps have been taken to counter anti-vaccine messaging by directly engaging with communities. Outreach efforts include call centers and texting campaigns, partnering with local community leaders, and holding community-based vaccine clinics. Creating digital and science literacy resources and distributing them via schools, libraries, municipal offices, churches and other community groups can help to counter misinformation in under-resourced communities. The Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium in Philadelphia is one example of a successful direct outreach initiative. Another is the New York State Vaccine Equity Task Force. In line with the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE)'s 3C's model, outreach to communities has focused on addressing mistrust and increasing Confidence, providing information to improve risk assessment (Complacency), and improving access to COVID-19 vaccines (Convenience). It has been necessary to counter disinformation in all three areas. In the Philippines, countermeasures include nationwide information campaigns led by the Department of Health, collaborations with UNICEF to address circulating misinformation, and initiatives by medical and scientific groups such as the Vaccine Solidarity Movement, which urges media outlets to prioritize expert guidance and avoid amplifying unverified claims. Local health workers and barangay officials are trained to respond to vaccine concerns at the household level,


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-0.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability and supporting evidence of effectivity. The term also includes accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain about their use or using certain vaccines but not others. Although adverse effects associated with vaccines are occasionally observed, the scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and effective is overwhelming. Vaccine hesitancy often results in disease outbreaks and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. Therefore, the World Health Organization characterizes vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats. Vaccine hesitancy is complex and context-specific, varying across time, place, and specific vaccine. It can be influenced by factors such as lack of proper scientific-based knowledge and understanding about how vaccines are made or work. Other psychological factors including fear of needles and distrust of public authorities, a person's lack of confidence (mistrust of the vaccine and/or healthcare provider), complacency (the person does not see a need for the vaccine or does not see the value of the vaccine), and convenience (access to vaccines). It has existed since the invention of vaccination and pre-dates the coining of the terms "vaccine" and "vaccination" by nearly eighty years. Although myths, conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-1
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-1.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
==== Formaldehyde ==== Vaccine-hesitant people have also voiced concerns about the presence of formaldehyde in vaccines. Formaldehyde is used in small concentrations to inactivate viruses and bacterial toxins used in vaccines. Small amounts of residual formaldehyde can be present in vaccines but are far below values harmful to human health. The levels present in vaccines are minuscule when compared to naturally occurring levels of formaldehyde in the human body and pose no significant risk of toxicity. The human body continuously produces formaldehyde naturally and contains 50–70 times the greatest amount of formaldehyde present in any vaccine. Furthermore, the human body is capable of breaking down naturally occurring formaldehyde as well as the small amount of formaldehyde present in vaccines. There is no evidence linking the infrequent exposures to small quantities of formaldehyde present in vaccines with cancer. === MMR vaccine === In the UK, the MMR vaccine was the subject of controversy after the publication in The Lancet of a 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield and others reporting case histories of twelve children mostly with autism spectrum disorders with onset soon after administration of the vaccine. At a 1998 press conference, Wakefield suggested that giving children the vaccines in three


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-2
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-2.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Prenatal infection === Based on studies in animal models, theoretical concerns have been raised about a possible link between schizophrenia and maternal immune response activated by virus antigens. A 2009 review concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend routine use of trivalent influenza vaccine during the first trimester of pregnancy, but that the vaccine was still recommended outside the first trimester and in special circumstances such as pandemics or in women with certain other conditions. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Academy of Family Physicians all recommend routine flu shots for pregnant women based on the risk for serious influenza-related complications, greater rates for flu-related hospitalizations compared to non-pregnant women, the possible transfer of maternal anti-influenza antibodies, and several studies failing to find harm to pregnant women or their children from the vaccinations. Despite this recommendation, only 16% of healthy pregnant US women surveyed in 2005 had been vaccinated against the flu. === Sudden infant death syndrome === Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is most common in infants around the time in life when they receive many vaccinations. Since the cause of SIDS has not been fully


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-3
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-3.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Blood transfusion === After the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine hesitant people have at times demanded that they get donor blood from donors that have not received the vaccine. In the US and Canada, blood centers do not keep data on whether a donor has been COVID-19 infected or vaccinated, and in August 2021 it was estimated that 60-70% of US blood donors had COVID-19 antibodies. Research director Timothy Caulfield said that "This really highlights, I think, how powerful misinformation can be. It can really have an impact in a way that can be dangerous ... There is no evidence to support these concerns." The British Journal of Haematology called the trend "alarming" in 2021. The chief medical officer of ImpactLife said the same year that accepting such a demand "would be an operational can of worms for a medically unjustifiable request". As of August 2021, such demands were rare in the US. As of 2024, the numbers are increasing. Doctors in Alberta, Canada, warned in November 2022 that the demands were becoming more common. The Association for the Advancement of Blood & Biotherapies (AABB) and the Canadian Blood Services have both issued guidance on how to respond to


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-4
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-4.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Natural infection === Another common anti-vaccine myth is that the immune system produces a better immune protection in response to natural infection when compared to vaccination. However, strength and duration of immune protection gained varies by both disease and vaccine, with some vaccines giving better protection than natural infection. For example, the HPV vaccine generates better immune protection than natural infection due to the vaccine containing higher concentrations of a viral coat protein, while also not containing proteins the HPV viruses use to inhibit immune response. While it is true that infection with certain illnesses may produce lifelong immunity, many natural infections do not produce lifelong immunity, while carrying a higher risk of harming a person's health than vaccines. For example, natural varicella infection carries a higher risk of bacterial superinfection with Group A streptococci. Natural measles infection carries a high risk of many serious, and sometimes life-long, complications, all of which can be avoided by vaccination. Those infected with measles rarely have a symptomatic reinfection. Most people survive measles, though in some cases, complications may occur. Among those that experience complications, about 1 in 4 individuals will be hospitalized and 1–2 in 1000 will die. Complications are more


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-5
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-5.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
Historically, chiropractic strongly opposed vaccination based on its belief that all diseases were traceable to so-called "vertebral subluxations" in the spine and therefore could not be affected by vaccines. Daniel D. Palmer (1845–1913), the founder of chiropractic, wrote: "It is the very height of absurdity to strive to 'protect' any person from smallpox or any other malady by inoculating them with a filthy animal poison." Vaccination remains controversial within the profession. Most chiropractic writings on vaccination focus on its negative aspects. A 1995 survey of US chiropractors found that about one third believed there was no scientific proof that immunization prevents disease. While the Canadian Chiropractic Association supports vaccination, a survey in Alberta in 2002 found that 25% of chiropractors advised patients for, and 27% advised against, vaccinations for patients or for their children. Although most chiropractic colleges try to teach about vaccination in a manner consistent with scientific evidence, several have faculty who seem to stress negative views. A survey of a 1999–2000 cross-section of students of Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC), which does not formally teach anti-vaccination views, reported that fourth-year students opposed vaccination more strongly than did first-year students, with 29.4% of fourth-year students opposing vaccination. A


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-6
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-6.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Fear of needles === Blood-injection-injury phobia and general fear of needles and injections can lead people to avoid vaccinations. One survey conducted in January and February 2021 estimated this was responsible for 10% of the COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the UK at the time. A 2012 survey of American parents found that a fear of needles was the most common reason for adolescents to forgo their second dose of a HPV vaccine. Various treatments for fear of needles can help overcome this problem, from offering pain reduction at the time of injection to long-term behavioral therapy. Tensing the stomach muscles can help avoid fainting, swearing can reduce perceived pain, and distraction can also improve the perceived experience, such as by pretending to cough, performing a visual task, watching a video, or playing a video game. To avoid dissuading people who have a needle phobia, vaccine update researchers recommend against using pictures of needles, people getting an injection, or faces displaying negative emotions (like a crying baby) in promotional materials. Instead, they recommend medically accurate photos depicting smiling, diverse people with bandages, vaccination cards, or a rolled-up sleeve; depicting vials instead of needles; and depicting the people who develop and


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-7
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-7.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
Since most religions predate the invention of vaccines, scriptures do not specifically address the topic of vaccination. However, vaccination has been opposed by some on religious grounds ever since it was first introduced. When vaccination was first becoming widespread, some Christian opponents argued that preventing smallpox deaths would be thwarting God's will and that such prevention is sinful. Opposition from some religious groups continues to the present day, on various grounds, raising ethical difficulties when the number of unvaccinated children threatens harm to the entire population. Many governments allow parents to opt out of their children's otherwise mandatory vaccinations for religious reasons; some parents falsely claim religious beliefs to get vaccination exemptions. Many Jewish community leaders support vaccination. Among early Hasidic leaders, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810) was known for his criticism of the doctors and medical treatments of his day. However, when the first vaccines were successfully introduced, he stated: "Every parent should have his children vaccinated within the first three months of life. Failure to do so is tantamount to murder. Even if they live far from the city and have to travel during the great winter cold, they should have the child vaccinated before three months." Although


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-8
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-8.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
== Countermeasures == Vaccine hesitancy is challenging and optimal strategies for approaching it remain uncertain. Multicomponent initiatives which include targeting undervaccinated populations, improving the convenience of and access to vaccines, educational initiatives, and mandates may improve vaccination uptake. The World Health Organization (WHO) published a paper in 2016 intending to aid experts on how to respond to vaccine deniers in public. The WHO recommends for experts to view the general public as their target audience rather than the vaccine denier when debating in a public forum. The WHO also suggests for experts to make unmasking the techniques that the vaccine denier uses to spread misinformation as the goal of the conversation. The WHO asserts that this will make the public audience more resilient against anti-vaccine tactics. === Providing information === Many interventions designed to address vaccine hesitancy have been based on the information deficit model. This model assumes that vaccine hesitancy is due to a person lacking the necessary information and attempts to provide them with that information to solve the problem. Despite many educational interventions attempting this approach, ample evidence indicates providing more information is often ineffective in changing a vaccine-hesitant person's views and may, in fact, have the


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-9
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-9.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
=== Avoiding online misinformation === It is recommended that healthcare providers advise parents against performing their own web search queries since many websites on the Internet contain significant misinformation. Many parents perform their own research online and are often confused, frustrated, and unsure of which sources of information are trustworthy. Additional recommendations include introducing parents to the importance of vaccination as far in advance of the initial well-child visit as possible; presenting parents with vaccine safety information while in their pediatrician's waiting room; and using prenatal open houses and postpartum maternity ward visits as opportunities to vaccinate. Internet advertising, especially on social networking websites, is purchased by both public health authorities and anti-vaccination groups. In the United States, the majority of anti-vaccine Facebook advertising in December 2018 and February 2019 had been paid for one of two groups: Children's Health Defense and Stop Mandatory Vaccination. The ads targeted women and young couples and generally highlighted the alleged risks of vaccines, while asking for donations. Several anti-vaccination advertising campaigns also targeted areas where measles outbreaks were underway during this period. The impact of Facebook's subsequent advertising policy changes has not been studied. === Incentive programs === Several countries have implemented programs


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-10
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-10.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
There was legitimate concern from supporters of vaccination about its safety and efficacy, but this was overshadowed by general condemnation, particularly when legislation started to introduce compulsory vaccination. The reason for this was that vaccination was introduced before laboratory methods were developed to control its production and account for its failures. Vaccine was maintained initially through arm-to-arm transfer and later through production on the skin of animals, and bacteriological sterility was impossible. Further, identification methods for potential pathogens were not available until the late 19th to early 20th century. Diseases later shown to be caused by contaminated vaccine included erysipelas, tuberculosis, tetanus, and syphilis. This last, though rare – estimated at 750 cases in 100 million vaccinations – attracted particular attention. Much later, Charles Creighton, a leading medical opponent of vaccination, claimed that the vaccine itself was a cause of syphilis and devoted a book to the subject. As cases of smallpox started to occur in those who had been vaccinated earlier, supporters of vaccination pointed out that these were usually very mild and occurred years after the vaccination. In turn, opponents of vaccination pointed out that this contradicted Jenner's belief that vaccination conferred complete protection. The views of opponents


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-11
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-11.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
==== United States ==== After an 1879 visit to New York by prominent British anti-vaccinationist William Tebb, The Anti-Vaccination Society of America was founded. The New England Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League formed in 1882, and the Anti-Vaccination League of New York City in 1885. Tactics in the US largely followed those used in England. Vaccination in the US was regulated by individual states, in which there followed a progression of compulsion, opposition, and repeal similar to that in England. Although generally organized on a state-by-state basis, the vaccination controversy reached the US Supreme Court in 1905. There, in the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the court ruled that states have the authority to require vaccination against smallpox during a smallpox epidemic. John Pitcairn, the wealthy founder of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company (now PPG Industries), emerged as a major financier and leader of the American anti-vaccination movement. On March 5, 1907, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he delivered an address to the Committee on Public Health and Sanitation of the Pennsylvania General Assembly criticizing vaccination. He later sponsored the National Anti-Vaccination Conference, which, held in Philadelphia in October 1908, led to the creation of The Anti-Vaccination League of America. When the league organized


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-12
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-12.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
In mid-2020, surveys on whether people would be willing to take a potential COVID-19 vaccine estimated that 67% or 80% of people in the US would accept a new vaccination against COVID-19. In the United Kingdom, a 16 November 2020 YouGov poll showed that 42% said they were very likely to take the vaccine and 25% were fairly likely (67% likely overall); 11% would be very unlikely and 10% fairly unlikely (21% unlikely overall) and 12% are unsure. There have been a number of reasons expressed why people might not wish to take COVID-19 vaccines, such as concerns over safety, self-perception of being "low risk", or questioning the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in particular. 8% of those reluctant to take it say it is because they oppose vaccinations overall; this amounts to just 2% of the British public. A December 2020 Ipsos/World Economic Forum 15-country poll asked online respondents whether they agreed with the statement: "If a vaccine for COVID-19 were available, I would get it." Rates of agreement were smallest in France (40%), Russia (43%) and South Africa (53%). In the United States, 69% of those polled agreed with the statement; rates were even higher in Britain (77%) and China (80%).


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-13
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-13.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
==== Nigeria, polio, measles, diphtheria (2001–) ==== In the early first decade of the 21st century, conservative religious leaders in northern Nigeria, suspicious of Western medicine, advised their followers not to have their children vaccinated with the oral polio vaccine. The boycott was endorsed by the governor of Kano State, and immunization was suspended for several months. Subsequently, polio reappeared in a dozen formerly polio-free neighbors of Nigeria, and genetic tests showed the virus was the same one that originated in northern Nigeria. Nigeria had become a net exporter of the poliovirus to its African neighbors. People in the northern states were also reported to be wary of other vaccinations, and Nigeria reported over 20,000 measles cases and nearly 600 deaths from measles from January through March 2005. In Northern Nigeria, it is a common belief that vaccination is a strategy created by the westerners to reduce the Northerners' population. As a result of this belief, a large number of Northerners reject vaccination. In 2006, Nigeria accounted for over half of all new polio cases worldwide. Outbreaks continued thereafter; for example, at least 200 children died in a late-2007 measles outbreak in Borno State. ==== United States, measles (2005–) ====


id: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-14
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy-14.md
category: reference
title: Vaccine hesitancy
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_hesitancy
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:48.023778+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: vaccine-hesitancy-20260505-0
summary:
==== United States, tetanus ==== Most cases of pediatric tetanus in the U.S. occur in unvaccinated children. In Oregon, in 2017, an unvaccinated boy had a scalp wound that his parents sutured themselves. Later the boy arrived at a hospital with tetanus. He spent 47 days in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and 57 total days in the hospital, for $811,929, not including the cost of airlifting him to the Oregon Health and Science University, Doernbecher Children's Hospital, or the subsequent two and a half weeks of inpatient rehabilitation he required. Despite this, his parents declined the administration of subsequent tetanus boosters or other vaccinations. ==== Romania, measles (2016–present) ==== As of September 2017, a measles epidemic was ongoing across Europe, especially Eastern Europe. In Romania, there were about 9300 cases, and 34 people (all unvaccinated) had died. This was preceded by a 2008 controversy regarding the HPV vaccine. In 2012, doctor Christa Todea-Gross published a free downloadable book online, this book contained misinformation about vaccination from abroad translated into Romanian, which significantly stimulated the growth of the anti-vaccine movement. The government of Romania officially declared a measles epidemic in September 2016 and started an information campaign to encourage parents


id: 19-to-zero-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_to_Zero-0.md
category: reference
title: 19 to Zero
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19_to_Zero
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:49.195296+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: 19-to-zero-20260505-0
summary:
19 to Zero is a Canadian not-for-profit behavioural sciences initiative based in Calgary, Alberta. Hosted at the University of Calgary, the public–private partnership is made up of around 500 members including public health specialists, academics, behavioural psychologists, marketers and multimedia creators. Its purpose is to increase confidence in vaccines for COVID-19 and other diseases by tackling vaccine hesitancy. The group publishes materials on its website and through partner organizations, including videos, billboards, presentations, brochures and in-person events. == History == === Founding === 19 to Zero was launched in August 2020 at the University of Calgary in order to influence the behaviour of the public surrounding public health measures and COVID-19 vaccines. The group's primary goal is to increase vaccine uptake in order to meet immunization targets, working to coordinate messaging among health care workers across Canada. 19 to Zero and the University of Toronto conducted a survey in the fall of 2020 to gauge routine vaccination rates following the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic. In September 2020, Alberta Innovates announced a $392,080 grant to fund 19 to Zero with a project titled "Changing COVID-19 Behaviors through a data-driven targeted marketing campaign." 19 to Zero collaborated in the development of


id: 2014-el-carmen-de-bol-var-illness-outbreak-20260505-0
file: data/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_El_Carmen_de_Bolívar_illness_outbreak-0.md
category: reference
title: 2014 El Carmen de Bolívar illness outbreak
tags: science, encyclopedia
source_url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_El_Carmen_de_Bolívar_illness_outbreak
date_saved: 2026-05-05T09:10:50.396811+00:00
instance: kb-cron
parent: 2014-el-carmen-de-bol-var-illness-outbreak-20260505-0
summary:
Beginning in March 2014 and increasing substantially in May and June 2014, over 600 teenage girls and women in El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia developed medically unexplained symptoms, including fainting, twitching, and loss of consciousness. Media and residents suggested the symptoms resulted from HPV vaccines, although health officials found no link between the vaccine and the symptoms. The event has been labeled as an example of mass psychogenic illness by medical professionals and by then-Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos. == Progression of events == The first girl in El Carmen de Bolívar to develop symptoms did so in late March 2014. Between 29 May and 2 June, 15 female students from Colegio Espíritu Santo were admitted to the local Nuestra Senora del Carmen hospital after developing "tachycardia, shortness of breath, and numbness of the limbs". Health officials considered "possible food, water, lead, or pesticide poisoning" as causes, while several of the girls' parents linked the symptoms to the Gardasil vaccine; the girls had received the second dose of the vaccine in school two months prior. Several of the girls were sent to hospitals in Sincelejo and Barranquilla, after continuing to show symptoms following their discharge. The school had not notified


