DaveDodo007... I mean... Rationalskepticism,lol.

[Mr.Samsa]

Don't go there, Samsa. MM is this forum's Scot Dutchy.

...Ah.

[mistermack]

I wonder which is longer ?

The list of drugs that have been withdrawn, for safety reasons, or the current list of drugs deemed ''safe''?

I'm betting on the first.
My mother was a psychiatric nurse. She used to swear by Distalgesic.
I now notice even that has been withdrawn for safety reasons.

[pErvinalia]

Science once got something wrong, therefore we should never trust science again. Winning logic!

[mistermack]

Don't go there, Samsa. MM is this forum's Scot Dutchy.

Well, you can take the word of this forum's Forrest Gump, if you want.

[pErvinalia]

Hey, I'm more like Lieutenant Dan!

[Mr.Samsa]

I wonder which is longer ?

The list of drugs that have been withdrawn, for safety reasons, or the current list of drugs deemed ''safe''?

I'm betting on the first.
My mother was a psychiatric nurse. She used to swear by Distalgesic.
I now notice even that has been withdrawn for safety reasons.

That drug was withdrawn because it was routinely used in suicide attempts, not because of safety concerns with the drug itself when used appropriately.

[mistermack]

That drug was withdrawn because it was routinely used in suicide attempts, not because of safety concerns with the drug itself when used appropriately.

That's not what I read.
What I read said that it could be dangerous to small people, people with certain heart conditions, etc etc,
edit, just looked it up on wikipedia, and it didn't mention suicide, it mentions fatal overdoses.

You do know that there's a difference?

The drug has been taken off the market in Europe and the US due to concerns of fatal overdoses and heart arrhythmias.

[Mr.Samsa]

That drug was withdrawn because it was routinely used in suicide attempts, not because of safety concerns with the drug itself when used appropriately.

That's not what I read.
What I read said that it could be dangerous to small people, people with certain heart conditions, etc etc,
edit, just looked it up on wikipedia, and it didn't mention suicide, it mentions fatal overdoses.

You do know that there's a difference?

The drug has been taken off the market in Europe and the US due to concerns of fatal overdoses and heart arrhythmias.

The citation for your wikipedia claim mentions the risk of suicide as the main reason for removing the drug, which is further supported by this report which lists the problem of self-poisoning (with only a subset being accidental).

What you've confused it with is the finding that the benefits no longer outweigh the side effects but it's not that the side effects have gotten worse exactly, it's more that newer evidence showed that the benefits weren't as great when compared to more modern drugs (especially since these drugs had fewer side effects).

If you're going to complain about drugs which have side effects and can cause death then you've practically relegated yourself to never taking drugs again. Anything that has an effect on the body will necessarily, under some circumstances or conditions, have a negative side effect.

[mistermack]

No, it was banned in Europe because the margin between an effective dose, and a harmful dose was far too slim.
In other words, it's easy to accidentally overdose.

Lots of drugs can be used for suicide. They don't take them off just for that, or they wouldn't be selling aspirin or paracetamol.

[Beatsong]

What magical powers are needed? The "magical power" of knowing Metatron for years and having had these discussions with him before?

So are you saying that you didn't misrepresent Metatron's position because you know what his position is from previous discussions, even though he hadn't expressed it in that thread?

That's fair enough I suppose. But what you actually wrote in the thread at issue was:

Finally you seem to be on-topic here. "Soundbites" to Metatron's disagreement? He appealed to chemophobia and "think of the children" emotional reasoning, and I responded with substantial rebuttals. When he had no other argument he relied on the idea that there is a conspiracy of clinicians drugging children to line their pockets - that is a conspiracy theory.

Here you seem to be describing what has actually happened in the thread - what Metatron has written in the thread. That's what Cito asked about, so that's what you naturally appear to be responding to. You didn't preface it with anything like "Oh yes, but in previous discussions he has..."

In that sense you're simply, factually incorrect. As is clear from reading every post Metatron had made in the thread up to that point, he never relied on any such idea. It simply didn't happen. Not only that but Metatron DID state quite clearly, prior to that point, what he thought the motivation for drugging supposedly ADHD children was, and it wasn't that.

But if that's unimportant because you know for a fact that that's what he thinks, and he's happy with that characterisation - then fair enough.

[Beatsong]

ETA: As for ADHD, I don't need rigorous statistical evidence to demonstrate that it exists. My personal and anecdotal experience on hand of my grandson is enough. I have repeatedly observed the difference between his behaviour when the drug worked and when its effect has worn off eight hours later. Ritalin and its equivalent, non-branded products work. If drugging is the best method is another matter, though. Two of my sisters have been teachers for several decades. One of them once remarked on the gobsmacking difference in behaviour of students in her school when the soft-drink vending machines were removed and the offerings at the tuckshop were changed. Maybe a change in diet is both cheaper and more effective.

I'm a bit confused here. How does the fact that ritalin demostrably has that effect on people, prove that ADHD exists?

I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist - just that I don't follow your reasoning.

[Hermit]

ETA: As for ADHD, I don't need rigorous statistical evidence to demonstrate that it exists. My personal and anecdotal experience on hand of my grandson is enough. I have repeatedly observed the difference between his behaviour when the drug worked and when its effect has worn off eight hours later. Ritalin and its equivalent, non-branded products work. If drugging is the best method is another matter, though. Two of my sisters have been teachers for several decades. One of them once remarked on the gobsmacking difference in behaviour of students in her school when the soft-drink vending machines were removed and the offerings at the tuckshop were changed. Maybe a change in diet is both cheaper and more effective.

I'm a bit confused here. How does the fact that ritalin demostrably has that effect on people, prove that ADHD exists?

I'm not saying ADHD doesn't exist - just that I don't follow your reasoning.

I don't much care about how one would go about precisely defining ADHD, nor that its existence, whatever its definition may turn out to be, needs to be proven. To me it suffices to have observed that my grandson's behaviour is frequently deleterious to harmonious interaction with people around him, aggressive, domineering and downright destructive. Together with the observation that as long as Ritalin, or some no-name equivalent drug, is active such behaviour does not occur. My shorthand rendering for this pair of observations is. "Ritalin is an effective method of handling ADHD." If your interest in discussing precisely how many angels can dance on the tip of a pin persists, please turn to someone who is also interested.

[JimC]

There seems to be two extremes in this ADHD debate. One is those who are convinced that either it does not exist, or that, even if it does, it is a condition that can always be dealt with by either a change in diet, counselling or better parenting/teaching.
The other seems to come from Mr Samsa, stating basically that every (or virtually ever) case of ADHD is a correct diagnosis, with the right prescription, and that there is simply no possibility of a degree of over diagnosis or prescription, and that the pharmaceutical industry has no impact on doctor's decisions at all...
I'm certain, like Hermit, that the condition exists, and that treatment by drugs can be very effective, because I've seen in with my own eyes. However, I have read many a report by responsible journalists suggesting that over-prescription, for a variety of reasons, is a real phenomenon. It doesn't take a weird conspiracy theory to understand that a variety of human motivations from companies and individuals can and does distort rational decision making...

[Seth]

There's clearly a cadre of professionals and academics and otherwise highly intelligent people there who know their shit. Then most of the rest of the membership is composed of humble intellectually curious people who learn a great deal and ask sensible questions (on the most part). But it's the small but vocal and arrogant minority [...] fuck up good threads with their arrogant bleating and refusal to learn or accept that they may be wrong.

What an active imagination you have.

No imagination required. The Dunning-Kruger types rEvolutionist is referring to stick out at ratskep like sore thumbs just as they do in any other forum where they appear. The combination of arrogance, ignorance, unquestionable certainty and inability to learn anything shines like the beacon from a lighthouse.

Thing is, one would think that if such people are so clearly wrong, it would be simple to deconstruct their errors using facts, logic and reason. Sadly, most of the time when someone invokes Dunning-Kruger it's because they are unable to provide a convincing argument based in facts, logic and reason and are in fact doing nothing more than repeating conventional wisdom or religious dogma such as the silly and entirely non-scientific proposition that zygotes, blastocysts, embryos or fetuses are each different and distinct species from that of the parents, as if at some arbitrary point in gestation a member of the species blastocyst changes its DNA and becomes species embryo, and then species fetus, and then species homo sapiens sapiens as it is delivered from the birth canal completely.

If ever there was an article of religious faith among religious Abortionists, it's that bit of idiocy.

So invoking Dunning-Kruger in such cases is really nothing more than admission of the claimant's ignorance and intellectual inferiority because he or she has no more rational argumentation and must resort to ad hominem attack instead.

It's really a bizarre form of the argument from authority wherein the claimant claims to be an expert on the subject and is therefore qualified to summarily dismiss and deride his or her opponent's arguments without further argument.

[Seth]

There seems to be two extremes in this ADHD debate. One is those who are convinced that either it does not exist, or that, even if it does, it is a condition that can always be dealt with by either a change in diet, counselling or better parenting/teaching.
The other seems to come from Mr Samsa, stating basically that every (or virtually ever) case of ADHD is a correct diagnosis, with the right prescription, and that there is simply no possibility of a degree of over diagnosis or prescription, and that the pharmaceutical industry has no impact on doctor's decisions at all...
I'm certain, like Hermit, that the condition exists, and that treatment by drugs can be very effective, because I've seen in with my own eyes. However, I have read many a report by responsible journalists suggesting that over-prescription, for a variety of reasons, is a real phenomenon. It doesn't take a weird conspiracy theory to understand that a variety of human motivations from companies and individuals can and does distort rational decision making...

The question to me is not whether ADHD exists, it does...in a small number of people...it's whether drugs are being used as a convenience for parents and particularly educators rather than as the most effective method of treatment, such as "*SMACK* Pay attention!" as an operant-conditioning method of stimulating extra effort on the part of the patient to take active and conscious control of his or her thought processes and learn by repetition how to concentrate and exclude distractions, which is clearly a learnable behavior that has been proven effective for thousands upon thousands of years.