2017 · Nature Genetics
Discovery of the first genome-wide significant risk loci for ADHD
Verdict
UNSCIENTIFIC
Neither the paradigm nor the study inside it passes. The verdict is unscientific.
1·Study methodology · inside the paradigm
UNSCIENTIFIC
Does not follow the scientific method within Genomics / DNA Model / Psychiatric Model.
2·Paradigm · Genomics / DNA Model / Psychiatric Model
UNSCIENTIFIC
Fails the tests. The worse layer decides.
How the verdict is decided
The verdict grades both layers: the paradigm this study assumes, and how the study was carried out inside it. Both must be scientific for the whole thing to be scientific. A clean method inside an unscientific paradigm is unscientific. An unscientific method inside a better paradigm is unscientific. A split on either layer is mixed. The worse layer decides.
1·Study methodology
Did this study test its claim with methods that are independent, falsifiable, and non-circular?
UNSCIENTIFIC
This study claims that 12 places in human DNA raise ADHD risk, found by comparing 20,183 diagnosed people with 35,191 others, and that ADHD is the extreme of an inherited trait. All three tests fail.
Independently Verifiable
Fail
The chip lit up in patterns and the model said each pattern marks a risk variant, while the cases were people a psychiatrist had coded F90.0.
Falsifiable
Fail
Earlier searches that found nothing were explained as too few people, so the design grew the sample until something crossed a cutoff.
Non-Circular
Fail
The diagnosis criteria picked the cases, and the patterns that separate those cases from everyone else were then read as the biology of the diagnosis.
Why
They took samples from diagnosed and undiagnosed people in 12 cohorts and ran them through chemistry and a chip the model assumes is reading DNA. The chip lit up in patterns, and the model says each pattern marks a genetic variant. A reference panel built under the same model filled in the readings the chip missed. The cases were people a psychiatrist had already given an ICD10 F90.0 code, so the group was set by criteria before any chip ran. Software compared pattern frequencies between that group and the rest across millions of spots, and called the ones past a cutoff risk loci. Restless, inattentive behavior is real. Nobody has seen DNA carry a risk for it. The study saw patterns differ between a coded group and everyone else.
2·Paradigm · Genomics / DNA Model / Psychiatric Model
Does the framework this study assumes pass the three tests?
UNSCIENTIFIC
Independently Verifiable
Fail
Sample, chip light and behavior are all anyone can witness; the genes, the variants and the code are added by the model.
Falsifiable
Fail
Twin studies promised 70 to 80 percent inherited, and when years of searching found nothing, the field blamed small samples and a gap it named missing heritability.
Non-Circular
Fail
The arrays, the reference panels and the maps of which regions matter were built from the sequence model, then used to confirm it.
Why
The DNA model says a sequence inside every cell carries a code that shapes traits. What anyone can observe is samples, chip light, and a person's behavior. The model supplies the variants, the genes, and the code. For ADHD, the promise of high inheritance came first. When searches found nothing, the field kept the promise, called the work underpowered, called the shortfall missing heritability, and added people until a cutoff was crossed. The instruments that read the samples and the annotation maps that interpret the hits were built under the same model. The psychiatric label sits on top, treating a diagnosis as the disease instead of asking what is happening to the child's body and surroundings. A working statistical output does not ground any of it.
From the study
We report a genome-wide association meta-analysis of 20,183 ADHD cases and 35,191 controls that identifies variants surpassing genome-wide significance in 12 independent loci, revealing new and important information on the underlying biology of ADHD.
ADHD cases in iPSYCH were identified from a national research register and diagnosed by psychiatrists at a psychiatric hospital according to ICD10 (F90.0), and genotyped using Illumina PsychChip.
Non-genotyped markers were imputed using the 1000 Genomes Project Phase 3 reference panel