Tough’s article explicitly mentions). But this isn’t widely accepted because nothing about the problem or solution seems appropriately scientific.

Of course, one way for ADHD boosters to navigate through the contradictions implicit in the bad science and the proposed rectification is to take a clearly defined idea and blur it by turning it into a spectrum.

Just like gender, autism, or sexual orientation, ADHD is yet another spectrum of symptoms: //

While this definition is certainly more “flexible,” it’s also perfectly useless. ADHD is now the equivalent of a mood that changes from day to day and place to place. This in turn makes it impossible to refute. If one wants to argue against the reality of ADHD, defenders can simply point to an indefinite “continuum” that encompasses multiple definitions of the presumed disorder. The goal of all this is to create a rhetorical loophole that allows ADHD believers to continue prescribing and taking drugs in the belief that the disorder is a real thing, not a cynical fabrication of unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies.