In the message after his "Last Message on the Topic", "Mark M." <markm@voicenet.com> writes:
Since diabetes has an organic cause, this analogy with syndromes and disorders defined solely by behavioral percentages fails.
Incorrect. I am not certain if ADD has been definitely linked to a lack of a certain neurotransmitter, but since it shows up on a PET scan, it probably is.
Even thinking about math shows up on a PET scan. Nothing disordered about that. I do it all the time. You seem to feel that if something can be detected scientifically, then it has some tangible existance beyond behavior and percentiles. Silly, because these things are tools of measurement too. Being able to reliably tell people apart based on some fallacious criteria does nothing to make the criteria less fallacious.
You say that a disorder defined only by behavioral percentage in not a real disorder. If the number was far less than 10%, would you then consider it a disease.
No. I would look at the population distribution. If it was smooth and continuous and similar to other distributions associated with continuous normal variation of physical characteristics, I certainly wouldn't call it a disease. If some poor soul was sitting five standard deviations away from the norm, with a verifiable organic problem, then the hypothesis of disease would certainly be one worthy of investigation.
In an earlier message, you claimed that depression is an actual disease. One-third of all Americans have some form of clinical depression. Your logic escapes me.
Depression is a normal human emotion as long as it is related to something sad in ones environment. Depression becomes a disease only when serious and inappropriate self-destructive behavior is likely, or when the mental state becomes endogenous, and unrelated to ones circumstances. Again, if I tried to define depression as "The least happy 33% of the population", that would be silly, regardless of whether true clinical depression existed.
It seems that the only people who think that drug treatment is bad for people with disorders that can cause that person to not reach his or her potential are those who have never even been afflicted with a mental disorder. Nor do they know much about the subject.
Medicating a disease is fine. Recreational uses of relatively harmless intoxicants and are also fine. It is the inappropriate use of strong medicines with serious side effects by clueless people for vague criteria like "reaching his or her potential" that I have a problem with.
People have lost jobs because of ADD.
People have lost jobs because they weren't physically strong, smelled bad, didn't have hair, or spoke English with an accent no one could understand. Do these people get "deficit disorders" too? Do we allow them to ingest potentially life-threatening and toxic chemicals in a vain attempt to pass everyone else in the Big Race Of Life(TM)? Face it. People are not all alike. Shit happens. Learn to adjust. Someday you'll find something you are good at, even if it's not public school.
I guess I am a True Believer. I believe that ADD exists.
I believe that large feet exist. But I don't walk around with an axe trying to correct the problem and save the large-footed people the shame that comes from not being able to excel in the world of ballet dancing.
I also believe in the theory of Relativity.
But can you derive it from a Lagrangian density without having to peek in the book? :)
Both of these are backed by hard evidence and nearly unanimous agreement among specialists in these fields.
There is absolutely no similarity between a hard science, like physics, and a collection of people who make money selling flim-flam to their disciples.
Of course, it's rather easy to dismiss something as a misfortune which doesn't effect you personally.
So the short, smelly, bald, big-footed people who can't do tensor calculus tell me. :) -- Mike Duvos $ PGP 2.6 Public Key available $ mpd@netcom.com $ via Finger. $