One can only wonder how much more great some of the people on this list would be today if they knew ADD back then.
That a fallacy. First, there's no way to know what they suffered if anything at all. Second, there's no way to know what would have happened. Third, there's what they themselves said. I know of many people who has your same signs. Hey you should see *my* office. And you should have seen it when I could devote myself to interesting things instead of XXXX(whateverI don't like) crap. Someone said about a kid not concentrating on grammar. Hell, I couldn't stand half of my professors in class, though I would perfectly listen to the same subject with other people. I don't know about you and don't pretend to tell you anything. But there are lots of cases in which the problem is *on the other side* (society, teachers, work, parents, priests, erroneous expectatives). I wonder how can we know from the external manifestations that those people were ADD and not just brilliant guys with dull teachers. As for those people you mentioned. Maybe if they had prozac they would have been perfect, quiet and compliant citizens, concentrated on what the power-that-be asked them to do. Think of Einstein happily working for Hitler, not worried about other themes (like ethical implications for instance). Thing is, it's very easy to keep everybody uniform. Easier than giving equal opportunities to less-good workers or allowing one to attempt many projects lest one succeeds and changes the stablishment! Let's make everyone into a uniform clone, and those who can't be made -say Down syndrome people- be exterminated. Let's enterprising people be forced into non-creative jobs, and if they don't like, be given drugs. Yeah! Let's monitor what everybody says, detect those guys who spend too much time at work reading cypherpunks or worrying about politics (which is not their job) and control them. Let's tap all their conversa- tions and force them to fit our idea of a uniform world of mediocre wits who just work perfectly in what we tell them and never question anything. I also wonder how those people you mentioned would have been allowed to do such great discoveries and destroy the grounds of their societies under the society we are heading to. "The World turning around the Sun? C'mon! Everybody knows it is flat and the Center of the Universe. That Galileo guy is obviously sick. Let's calm him down with some drugs so he can concentrate on Theology as it should well be"... Sorry, I think we need unfitted people, feeling unhappy about the society to make it evolve. jr