[ringzero]

Ah, so you’d also agree homosexuality is a mental illness that “political groups” lobbied to change? Because, from the perspective of someone who isn’t a conspiracy theorist or bigot, it looks like the DSM updated their definition as more research and academic interest rendered the old definition outdated.

[msla]

There's an actual, interesting question here, away from the Culture War fighting, which we can have if we want it: How much of any academic field is due to the culture that field is immersed in, and how much is due to empirical evidence and people attempting to be unbiased?

For example, there's the existence of Jesus Christ: Modern historians agree that there was a man named Joshua-son-of-Joseph who was a heretical rabbi in the First Century Middle East who got crucified by the local authorities. Why? Is it because the evidence for him is just that good, or is it because most scholars in Christian countries were Christian and, therefore, unapt to question their surrounding culture?

With Jesus, it's because of the evidence, as it happens, but the question is there, and hooting it down does a disservice to larger questions all fields have to confront as they mature.