Opinion of Drapetomania.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Well I can't imagine anyone (except possibly Statesrights) saying positive therefore there is no poll, I'm merely using this an example of how Science can be abused to further various other interests (After all Cartwright was considered a leading scientist at the time):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draptomania

[Gabu]

Was this actually seriously asserted?  The description and prescribed actions given sound like satire.

[A18]

(I'll just assume this is legit.)

I don't think this was an "abuse of science"; rather, the whole field of medicine is part scientific and part normative.

When a doctor seeks to alter a person's psychological or bodily state, he needs to understand the body and mind, and how they function. This is certainly a valid branch of science. But deciding what should be altered and what should not is normative--and hence unscientific.

Take a person who is hallucinating. Our universal reaction--to brand this an illness--is based on the strong conviction that hallucination is a bad thing. But that involves an unscientific value judgment. It is learning how to treat this condition that is the role of science.

In reaching his repulsive conclusion that this yearning of man to be free was a "disorder," this uncivilized hack was not abusing science; rather, he was not acting as a scientist at all. The scientific part of his writing was proposing a "cure," all within the framework of his normative system.

An abuse of science is not a meaningful concept, in my humble opinion. You can hardly abuse a method of arriving at knowledge, except I suppose in the sense of not adhering to it while claiming to.

[John Dibble]

Clearly racism based pseudoscience as described in the wiki article.

[Sensei]

They actually gave the "cure" as "whipping the devil out of him". I lol'd.

[Gabu]

They actually gave the "cure" as "whipping the devil out of him". I lol'd.

Yeah, that's kind of what made me ask whether or not this is satire, although the whole premise of slaves wanting to flee due to mental problems (as opposed to, you know, not enjoying being slaves) would have been enough.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

It was really asserted btw:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html

[Gabu]

It was really asserted btw:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html

I suppose this is yet another piece of proof for the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

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Totally True except one fact; Cartwright was seen as significant enough to be appointed to a high medical office in the CSA - the point of this thread is that so-called medical experts can often intrepet what we call scientific facts (Would a desire for a man to be free be a scientific fact? I assume so, which is of course a major problem in itself.) into something which can justify the prejudices of whichever society he happens to be in; of course this "expert" would not think of it as such but he would think trying to solve a 'problem' whose roots are social rather medical.

ADHD, anyone?