ADHD May Be Associated with Creative Genius

From PsychCentral:

Professor Fitzgerald says: “The same genes that are involved in ADHD can also be associated with risk-taking behavior. While these urges can be problematic or even self-destructive – occasionally leading people into delinquency, addiction or crime – they can also lead to earth-shattering breakthroughs in the fields of the art, science and exploration.

“People with ADHD have symptoms of inattentiveness, but they often also have a capacity to hyper-focus on a narrow area that is of particular interest to them. Clearly ADHD is not a guarantee of genius, but the focused work rate that it produces may enable creative genius to flourish.

“For example, Kurt Cobain – who we know was prescribed the anti-hyperactivity drug Ritalin as a child – had an amazing ability to focus on writing music.”

More here.

When I was getting certified to teach back in the late 90s, we talked a lot about ADHD in my educational psychology class. After a while, I had a horrible realization: "Wait a minute. ADHD, an inability to sit still and focus on boring material or tasks for an extended period of time, can only be a problem for modern society, whose classrooms and offices require sitting still and focusing on boring material and tasks for extended periods of time. A hundred years ago people with ADHD were probably working on farms or in a trade or something such that it was no big deal. You're telling me that even though the human organism hasn't changed, what society requires of human beings has changed, so we've all decided that a completely natural aspect of the human condition is now a pathology?"

I've gotta respect my professor's honesty. "Well yeah," she said.

I learned a great deal about the "science" of psychology in that brief exchange. That is, psychology, like economics, is widely understood to be a science. But it's not. I mean, psychology is a legitimate field of study, from which we have learned a great deal of useful information. But it's not a science like chemistry or physics. Those are fields that do a great job of establishing absolute truth about physical reality--yeah, I know it's more complicated than that, but I'm sure you get my drift. Fields like psychology and economics, which use assumptions like dogs use trees and fire hydrants, and are greatly vulnerable to the biases of society's centers of power, cannot possibly establish truth in the way that the so-called hard sciences can. Nevertheless, "sciences" like psychology are endowed with the cultural legitimacy of the hard sciences. That is, when a psychologist says something about how human beings think and feel, people generally accept it as truth in the same way people accept that the earth is round and orbits the sun.

So ADHD is a disability, a pathology, a mental defect. We know this because the "scientists" tell us so. But ADHD is also a naturally occurring aspect of what we are as human beings, an aspect that is only a problem because of how today's social establishment has decided we must live our lives. ADHD may also very well be associated with genius. Treating it as a pathology, then, might also be treating genius as a pathology. This is science?

The point here is that we need to be keenly aware of what is science and what is simply scientific. Sodium and chlorine coming together to make table salt is science. Deregulating the oil industry because regulating business is always bad for the economy is simply scientific. See the difference? The former we know for sure because we can replicate the experiment at home if we want to. The latter may be true in some circumstances but clearly not always.

We should always take what psychologists and economists tell us with a grain of salt. As if watching buddies of mine snorting Ritalin off a mirror at a party when I was an undergrad years ago didn't tell me we have severe problems with how we understand ADHD.

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