Letters to the editor Feb. 20

Response to Wadama’s Feb. 15 column
Do your homework

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a clinical disorder recognized by the American Psychiatric Association, as defined by the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition. The DSM-IV-TR recognizes three types of ADHD: Combined Type, Predominantly Inattentive Type and Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type. While the symptoms may be common, as Wadama states, they are not “too vague.”

In a 2012 report by the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Dr. Katrin Bruchmuller says that ADHD is a neurobiological disorder affecting 2 to 7 percent of children. Dr. Sara Durston, University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, said in 2003 that while the specific etiology of ADHD is unclear, research suggests abnormal activity of neurotransmitter systems, and the catecholamines dopamine and norepinephrine play a role in attention, impulse control and hyperactivity.

Wadama is quick to quote from non-peer reviewed sources (the Examiner) and use flashy quotes, but fails to do her homework. Douglas Gentile, whom she quotes in her article, in a 2012 publication in Psychology of Popular Media Culture, postulates that exposure to “screen media may increase attention problems,” but recognizes that disorders like ADHD are “substantially biologically based.”

Until recently, I had no idea what it was like to be able to sit down and be still for longer than a few minutes. Ongoing research regarding the biological origin and advancements related to treatment of ADHD has given me the opportunity to sit and be still. I would not give that up.

Wadama’s article, printed by The Daily Barometer, is exactly the type of self-serving judgmental perjury that prevents people who are encumbered by these disorders from seeking assistance and being taken seriously by greater society. Wadama should do her research before she publishes opinion-driven rubbish in the name of factual evidence.

Henri J. Sanville
Graduate student, geology

Response to Gerald Voorhees Feb. 18 letter
Censorship doesn’t stifle differing viewpoints

Liberals get so angry when you point out flaws in their thinking. The tolerance they espouse for other viewpoints instantly vaporize the moment their beliefs are questioned. They are self-professed champions of freedom of opinion when you agree with them, totalitarian brutes when you don’t. Gerald Voorhees, the assistant professor of media and cultural studies, felt obligated to defend the ridiculous Women’s Studies manifesto decrying the non-existent “culture of rape” that has become the popular belief within that group.

I feel that the title “assistant professor of media and cultural studies” is a clever pseudonym that should probably read, “purveyor of the approved political dogma,” and that Voorhees’ self-perceived duties include telling other people what’s fit and isn’t fit to say or print in somebody else’s newspaper. That is fairly typical of an extremist. What is also particularly typical is that academic types, like Voorhees, like to use arguments from authority fallacies to defend their stances and shut people up. Voorhees takes me to task for refusing the “empirical reality” of the existence of a “culture of rape” within our society, a charge I eagerly admit to — much in the same way I refuse the “empirical reality” of the fairy godmother. I’m sure if needed, Voorhees could generate peer-reviewed documentation that proves the existence of such a being. Peer review is highly touted in academic circles, but I find it to be intellectually lazy. Peer review is another term for “groupthink.” It doesn’t conjure truth into being, and people with common sense can see through the posturing and the lofty titles. When you tell people that innocuous statements like “that test raped me” is equal to a broader culture of something and then double-down on the insanity, people understand that for the hyperbole it is. Censoring others’ viewpoints won’t fix that.

Harry Mallory
Corvallis resident