Opinions

It seems that forensic psychiatry decisions often rely on contradictory expert opinions. DSM-III provides reasonably objective criteria for diagnostic decisions, perhaps the legal system will eventually develop sets of criteria with appropriate decision trees and point (items and numerical) systems that remove the adversarial nature in favor of standard empirical evidence (physiological, psychometric, behavioral, statistical, and actuarial). Forensic psychiatrists can delineate correlations and probabilities for psychiatric populations, though they still could be statistically precise, constantly updated, and objective. Ultimately decisions could be based not on the most basic patterns, convincing arguments, and eloquent opinions, but on the available evidence and most reliable data.

Replies:

Re:Opinions, by William Reid, 11/15/03

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