ADHD and the Meaning of Evidence

Part 2

Direct evidence is that which an eyewitness or expert describes from their own first hand observations. What do the experts say? ADHD may be (may be) genetic: no one has extended this to its logical and necessary conclusion by identifying which chromosome has this defective gene and why the defect is there. Blue eyes, incidentally, are genetically determined. Does that make them a disease?

ADHD may (again), be due to biochemical imbalance: Not one piece of evidence exists to indicate this. Indeed, where biochemical imbalances are suggested, there is again a signal lack of empirical evidence to support the theory. (Empirical means that it can be repeated, tested, verified.)

ADHD may be (and again) hereditary: Just as in quoting spurious "genetics", this is meaningless at best and deliberately misleading at worst. Criminal behavior is also hereditary. Criminal fathers more often than not are followed by criminal sons (and daughters). The behavior is learned, and just as musical parents produce musical children and enthusiastic sports loving parents produce sporting offspring, this is no indicator of genetics or hereditary cause. It should be noted that Chinese children have a propensity to grow up speaking Chinese if they grow up in China. Those that have been adopted by western parents and taken to America, for instance, have not as yet spontaneously begun to speak Chinese because it is hereditary or genetic for them to do so. Language, like behavior, is learned.

What about the weakest form of evidence, circumstantial? Ah, well here at last the ADHD proponents have something! Children misbehave and run about wildly, they are defiant and get bored easily. Er… yes, they always have done. The circumstances of this "aberrent" behavior suggest to these ADHD observers that something is wrong - the child must be "ill". It perhaps should be put to them that the children are fine, it is they that are suffering from "Observational Inaccuracy and Distortion Disorder".

Next, ADHD and Evidence Part 3

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