To calculate a p-value (roughly spoken), you need to start with a single hypothesis. Then you gather data and the p-value gives you the probability that your data occurs while your hypothesis is false. When you start with a finite set of multiple hypotheses, you need to take that in to account when calculating your p-value.
When you start with data and come up with a hypothesis afterwards, you would have to find the whole potential space of all hypotheses. So, for example, how many hospitals are there? Do you only consider US? Do you only consider nurses or other employees as well? What about only four nurses would that have made it to the news? What about other forms of cancer? What about time? Do you consider the time period of the last 50 years? As you think about what might have made the news, the set of hypotheses grows bigger and bigger and as it approaches infinity, the p-value for any data would approach one. Because when you have a very large set of unlikely hypotheses, the probability that your data accidentally supports one of them is quite large.
I imagine technological progress has been made in the field of explosives as well. I guess the volume and weight can very very small when you can determine that the phone is being held at the head and the explosion can partially be directed to it. Maybe it's even possible to leverage the energy within the battery?
There are plenty of jobs out there that are perfectly compatible with ADHD. It's just that in our society, we strive to be our best self. Why would I want to build my life around that disorder? Why I would I want to build society around that disorder? You have to deal with it somehow, of course, and a more flexible work environment is beneficial for everybody. But the society is not the problem, having that disorder is the problem.
Just like when you are blind or lost an arm. It's not a problem because society is build around the assumption that people have two arms, it's not a problem because society is build around the assumption that you can see. We should help people to deal with this issues, but saying society is the problem is the wrong way to think about it.
I had undiagnosed ADHD for 35 years and I suffered a lot. When my future girlfriend came to visit my place for the first time, I feard that we would not have electricity because I did not pay the bills. Not a money issue, but between all the daunting daily tasks I just was not able to accomplish that task for MONTHs.
I was working on my PhD in CS and didn't get anything done at all. I was in constant fear of getting a task related to Excel, because all these little cells have always made me nervous and furious. I would invest 2-3 hours working around a repetitive task of maybe 20 minutes, because doing it was unbearable. I had always been socially anxious, because for being socially active you need that type of attention that is just hard to maintain. I love being in nature, but going for a walk through the woods? Not possible, because it's "not exciting" enough.
Then a friend gave me some of his pills. I took them for a few days and for the first day of my life I understood how everybody else was feeling, how everybody else could be so confident, behaving confident, just being and feeling normal. I knew that feeling from rare occasions, the absence of all that struggle you are constantly feeling in your body. I had my first normal workday ever. Just going to work, doing work, having a break, later going home. I had never experienced that ever before. And still I didn't believe I had ADHD, never slipped my mind, lol. But then COVID hit and we went into lockdown and homeoffice and I could not work at all and I suffered immensly. I knew that feeling of "I want to do it SO hard, but I just CAN'T" very well, but this time it hit me very hard, for weeks. She convinced me to get diagnosed and here I am, it feels like a distant past already. It was like an instant switch, even though it's a journey to retrain my brain after for decades it had to come up with mechanics to deal with the disorder.
I know there many out there that are/were like me and I know there are many out there that had a quite different experience with their ADHD. Please don't walk around saying society is the problem. Society is not the problem when it comes to depression and it's not the problem when it comes to ADHD. A lot of people would benefit from a different society for sure, but for me and many others it's nothing more than a disorder. It was a miracle I could start a PhD to begin with (and of course getting my Master's was a constant struggle, just as my whole life had been miserable and a struggle). Many others end up drug addicted, dropping out ot school, having a clinical depression, and other nasty stuff. As all mental disorders, we do not know too much about it, but as a matter of fact the medication helps greatly and I am so glad I got finally diagnosed. Some that have ADHD do not suffer that much as I did, but a lot of do. I only wish that my disorder does not get misrepresented as "wouldn't be a big deal in a more open society".
I know that a lot of people struggle a lot with ADHD, and I'm not at all opposed to medication for you and them. My dad struggled to hold down a job for most of my childhood. Had he received his ADHD diagnosis earlier, my early life would have been much more stable. I'm not trying to downplay the degree to which people suffer and their need for help.
However, what you describe feels to me like validation of my point, not a contradiction. Undiagnosed ADHD overwhelmingly becomes manifest in times exactly like what you describe—you were working on a PhD! You were overwhelmed by Excel. You hated repetitive tasks. COVID lockdowns were impossible for you.
The depression and anxiety associated with ADHD are not inherent to the ADHD traits, they're the result of feeling incapable to cope with the modern world. All of the things that you described as overwhelming are accidental complexity that we can and should get rid of. Being a great researcher shouldn't require all of the overhead that we impose on modern PhD candidates. Just living in the modern world shouldn't require all that overwhelming bookkeeping—as just one example, taxes and bills can be and should be mostly automated, but they're not. If you didn't have to keep track of a million tiny things in your life, would you have been anxious and depressed?
Again, in the present reality medication is hugely important for a lot of people like you. But that doesn't mean that the world shouldn't also change to not require keeping track of so many things that add so little value.
It didin't manifest in particular while I did my PhD, that was just the latest phase of my life. Took me 10 years for the Master's and another 10 years for my PhD. I don't think you can imagine the struggle, the fear, the shame, the sadness that came with it my whole life.
As already said, going for a walk was very difficult. Social interactions were very difficult and they can still be difficult when medication wears off in the evening. In general, all my life I wanted to do all kind of stuff, but couldn't. There's nothing society can do about that. It's not all about work either. So, to answer your question: Yes, I still would be anxious and depressed, because I was not able to do what made me relief stress and feel good in general.
I could've learned to be totally fine with ADHD, I was just too stubborn to build my life around that disorder. I kept doing what I wanted to do, not what I could do. I bet your father could've been a perfectly fine sports instructor or carpenter or find another fitting job. I certainly could've, but it luckily never slipped my mind. So we wouldn't need to adapt society, just teach people better what they can and cannot do. That's also much more realistic than "make jobs easier". I don't think, anyone should build his or her life around that disorder and I don't think society should. I did learn how to deal with it though and society should as well, of course. As often, it comes down to balance. A simpler life would've helped definetely.
I oppose your perspective in particular because it's mostly shared by people who deny that ADHD is a disorder, which is just wrong and terrible to think for many that are affacted.
To calculate a p-value (roughly spoken), you need to start with a single hypothesis. Then you gather data and the p-value gives you the probability that your data occurs while your hypothesis is false. When you start with a finite set of multiple hypotheses, you need to take that in to account when calculating your p-value.
When you start with data and come up with a hypothesis afterwards, you would have to find the whole potential space of all hypotheses. So, for example, how many hospitals are there? Do you only consider US? Do you only consider nurses or other employees as well? What about only four nurses would that have made it to the news? What about other forms of cancer? What about time? Do you consider the time period of the last 50 years? As you think about what might have made the news, the set of hypotheses grows bigger and bigger and as it approaches infinity, the p-value for any data would approach one. Because when you have a very large set of unlikely hypotheses, the probability that your data accidentally supports one of them is quite large.
That's what parent was talking about.