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Psychiatry is less exact than sciences like chemistry, with diagnoses and definitions evolving over time.

Mental disorders often lack clear causes and may defy classification, as seen with pseudologia fantastica.

Pseudologues in power could erode trust and disrupt organizations due to their persistent fantastic lying.

“Isn’t it true, doctor, that medicine is an inexact science?” Anyone testifying in court as an expert witness can expect that question at some point in their cross-examination. The correct answer is “Yes.”

Few, if any, of the specialty areas of medicine achieve the exactitude of chemistry, mathematics, physics, mechanical engineering, or even architecture. A well-constructed bridge will remain in place for perhaps centuries, while a surgical operation may be performed flawlessly, but the patient may nonetheless die due to conditions beyond the surgeon’s control.

An absence of exactitude is especially inherent in diseases of neuropsychiatric origin. This starts with deciding what the disease should be named. Physicians in the 19th century had a predilection for naming diseases after the practitioner who first recognized and described them. Thus, today we have the eponymous Parkinson’s disease named after the........

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