Michael Jackson

[Mowbray]

Does anybody think that Michael Jackson is guilty?

Some people say he's innocent until proven guilty.  But I don't get it when the guy admits to allowing young boys to sleep in his bed and holds their hands on Bashir's interview.

Also, I don't understand why he paid that child so much money a few years back to keep quiet - Surely Michael would want to prove is innocence. (I know I would want to prove I was innocent, especially with such allogations being made).

Any opinions? :-)

[MargeB]

No, I didn't accuse you of lying. I have dozens of friends who studied psychology to degree level, but who don't have degrees in psychology. Do you have a degree in psychology? You never said you did. I said you didn't. Was that lying? I said that because I found it very difficult to accept that you could fill 3-4 years taking psychology to a degree, through the UK honours system, with its experiment dimension, and then equate the means and methods of psychology to religious guesswork.
To try to give the impression to people that you have a degree in psychology, and from this position then try to rubbish the subject, is what I believed you were doing, so I tried to expose this by questioning whether you had a degree in psychology, because you did not say you had one but tried to make people think you did. Do you?
I never once asked what autism is, I asked how people thought you could tell if you had autism. Is it wrong for a psychologist to ask what people look for to diagnose autism? Most psychologists don't fully know. 10 years ago we said 3pc of british kids had autistic spectrum disorders, now we think it's 10 according to an expanded definition. "Sensory skills" is a vastly indefined expression, so I asked the user of the term to define it, and I went on to explain why I found it imprecise.
Psychology is all about *proof*, which is why it's full of hypotheses and accepted levels of probability and population equations. The fact that you misunderstand 'theory' by equating it to religious 'blind faith' or 'unfounded guesswork' leads me to some interesting questions...

[El D]

Unfortunately MargeB proof in psychology is largely dependant on self-defined parameters - i.e. 'abuse', 'harm', most of which are themselves largely dependant on the last 20 years of research - a very small sample of humanity and social conditions.

[MargeB]

Nice point El D.
However:
The self-defined parameters can relate to very objective phenomena thought. For example, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a symptom of child abuse recoverers, is an involuntary psychological response with involuntary but highly classifiable physical behavioural symptoms.
Most psychological phenomena that have been studied come about as a result of the design of a human being, independent of social circumstantial forces. Those that do place an emphasis on a social component either do so in order to attempt changes in the social environment for the good of the individual, or remain applicable because we are, broadly speaking, living within the same social environment when looking at the forces that really matter most to social psychology: attribution errors, bystander effects, that kind of thing. Any purely social forces are the realm of sociology or social anthropology, not psychology (since they are not psyco- "logical").
Re: population size, interesting point, but psychology takes this into account (in the extreme). The population that is being considered in a study is declared at the start of an experimental process (p=children, or 30-50yr aged english men, or all people, for example), and then n, the number of people tested experimentally is established statistically, taking into account various other factors. From this, you have a population validity, where it can be established that your hypothesis relates to all those within the population you have declared, not just your "n" sample.

[Lindy Loo]

From the original question about MJ this has turned into a debate on psychology!!! It's a shame that the original question asked has got lost in the apparent ego trip of one poster, and the constant correcting of all other contributers!!

I am very sceptical of MJ's motives and his protestations of innocence, but I have a bias view point, having been the victim of abuse myself during childhood, long before the current public awareness of abuse even began. For the victim the effects last forever.

What ever happened within the walls of Neverland, one thing is certain.... Life for the 'victim', his family and Jackson himself will never be the same again.

No matter what the outcome of the trial is, Jackson will always have adoring fans. I just hope that children and parents alike remember, that at the end of the day, MJ is just a man and should be treated as such in this particular instance.

[luckyboy]

Very sad to hear of your own personal experiences with child abuse lindy, yes you are right child abuse is appalling and a very serious matter.. if jacko is found guilty a long prison stretch is what he should get and deservedly so, regardless of his status as a megastar.but i'm just as sceptical of the motives and actions of this family, as for the trial i want to hear much more corraborating evidence than what they have come up with so far, boys fingerprints on porn magazines before i reserve jackson's guilt. theres been so many false child abuse cases over the years built on phoney claims that we should always be wary in future especially here. 

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