As a wildlife rehab volunteer I carried various birds of prey into educational programs.
We had non releasable owls, hawks (buteos) and a black vulture.
What we did not have were accipiters and falcons (OK, one very tiny kestrel who went into KLEEKLEEKLEE mode five minutes after you got him out and had to go back in his safe box). Those birds are hot wired like warp ten starfighters. That grey streak you saw at your bird feeder right before the sparrow exploded was a Cooper's Hawk, destroying the space-time conundrum. Falcons are the fastest living thing on the planet (in a dive). Both are expert level falconry birds.
Anyone can fly a redtail. Buteos like redtails hunt by sitting, watching, waiting, or surfing the thermals. Literal surfer dudes. Owls also hunt by sitting and waiting, or drifting silently over fields (barn owls). All of these make excellent lecture birds, because they are wired to be chill.
You can take an excursion into the mad insanity that is NYC with your shi(t)poo but try putting a wolf on a leash... you won't get out the gate of the sanctuary. I met a wolf-dog hybrid at a faerie fest, and he was lurking in the back of the pavillion tent, looking a bit overwhelmed. That was a fairly quiet outdoor festival, and THAT was a HYBRID. Wolves are hardwired to smell, hear, notice things not even the neurospiciest of neurospicy humans would.
The mundane world of most humans is stupidly overwhelming.
Enter us, the neurospicey hunters. Maybe we've spent a lifetime masking, shielding, escaping the Stupid. Most of the modern human world is not designed for us. We are happier in the woods, the water, the beach... long empty stretches...well they look empty to the Mundanes, but not to us.
Ma Nature requires diversity, of form, function, and brainstyle.
Like! But what about the prey?!? I have had the privilege of many an afternoon on the porch in the woods with a dozen chipmunks, a dozen juncos, and several gray squirrels I have concentrated with seeds to keep me company. One notices sudden absence! I think mostly it's a sharp-tailed hawk I catch a glimpse of, but it's amazing how savvy the targets are! What is happening in their brains, aware before even the shadow passes over? Brilliant.
Me too. The diagnosis would have just been a guide to coping, not medicating. There was a book by a guy with one of those 12-syllable names (Polish?) maybe Szh.........mahaly???called "Flow," I am reaching back: in the 70's, it seemed to describe ADHD hyper focus, in retrospect. Essential creativity is connecting points of information that are not obviously related.
I've been reading your work for decades, and I wanted to thank you.
When I was finally diagnosed with ADHD later in life, I had already spent years wondering why my mind worked differently from so many other people's. Your Hunter/Farmer framework didn't just explain ADHD to me—it helped me understand myself.
I'm one of those people who is always scanning, always asking questions, always looking around the next corner. For much of my life, I was told those qualities were distractions. Your work helped me see that they can also be strengths when they're directed toward a purpose.
For more than twenty years I've worked on election transparency. That work has required persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to keep looking when others have stopped. Reading today's article about the Homer1 research reminded me again that what some people call "noise" can sometimes be the very awareness that allows us to notice what others miss.
I especially appreciated your point that science can explain how a mechanism works, but it cannot tell us whether that mechanism is inherently good or bad. That meaning comes from the environment and from the story we choose to tell.
As someone who was diagnosed later in life, your writing gave me a healthier story to stand on. Instead of seeing myself as someone who needed to become someone else, I came to understand that I simply needed to learn when my Hunter traits were an advantage and when I needed to borrow some Farmer skills.
Thank you for spending so many years helping people like me understand ourselves a little better. Your work has made a real difference in my life, and I suspect in the lives of many others who finally realized they weren't broken—they were simply wired differently.
I also was diagnosed later, and it might have helped me cope with professional issues earlier, for starters. It's nice to identify with a bit of "community" thanks to Thom. I now recognize with humor when I can't get across a room on my way to do one thing without stopping to do something else! The clutter is never conquered. All I've learned is the futility of (creatively!) building another sorting space. AKA another smatter-pile. Oh well, hello, brethren.
Thank you, again, for spotlighting a study that points to one of the most important sentinel features for dealing with threats: Detection. This Homer1 study could be considered relevant but not actually necessary for understanding what are the most important sentinel-defender variables.
It adds important findings but Hartmann and many others continue to ignore the most important variable for sentinel-defender types: sensory amplification.
I was thrilled to note that Hartmann is using the "radar" metaphor. Many of my clients who fit the criteria for sensory amplification syndrome (SAS) were so sensory capable that they could notice things while "sleeping" like changes in air pressure when a door was quietly opened, among many other things. Not so great for unfragmented sleep, but great for their tribe's safety.
The "knob" (according to Hartmann) that the Homer1 study discovered is far less powerful than the knob we have known and understood for over 15 years now.
That volume control relates to locus coeruleus functions that we already know can be significantly modulated with clonidine or guanfacine. In fact, one or the other at the correct individualized dose can be a nearly "miracle" medication for turning the volume down. without numbing or other significant side effects. By turning the volume down, data load is turned down. Distractibility is less likely to take place with lower data loads and less noise at baseline. (As noted in the Homer1 study). Having your radar tuned way up all the time? Not so much fun these days.
I have written so much about sensory amplification in my books and here at substack that I cannot possibly cover it all here. I recommend the following links to my findings.
I think Hartmann came up with a very helpful framing of the differences in the human population with by reframing the anthropologists' "Hunter-Gatherer" in terms of the actual other side of the coin. "Farmer." I have followed his writings since late 1990s. I have hoped he would move his language choices to better reflect the "spectrum" of those characteristics. In other words, we all are on a spectrum when it comes to "Hunter-Farmer." I am leaning toward "the Planner/Organizer—Adventurer/Defender spectrum.
The binary quality of Hartmann's Hunter-Farmer terminology is very misleading. In addition, although Hartmann denies any "contempt" is associated with his "Farmer" terminology, it manifests over and over again. His disdain for how he was treated and what he experienced in medical and educational services is more than a little obvious. And, more than as little justified. How he invented a better way to portray the characteristics of so-called ADHD to his son is especially cool.
However, I think it is time for Hartmann to start using a more up-to-date, accurate, scientific language, rather than the same-old same-old of the last 30 years. I will be writing more about what language considerations I think Hartmann might consider. But, first he needs to get caught up on the science. Honestly.
Thirteen years later, my 2013 Book still stands the test of time. I have just finished a comprehensive review of the literature since 2013 to track, fact-check, and modify what I said in 2013 with what has shown up since then. The preliminary assessment? It is still ahead of its time.
Hartmann continues to conflate ADHD with sensory sensitivity. What was clear in 2013, and is still clear, is that sensory amplification syndrome (mostly a locus coeruleus setting) is a standalone situation. Not a disorder. It can be a challenge due to so many things. But it is clearly independent of low working memory, IQ status, etc.
A person dealing with SAS alone, without low working memory, or lower IQ, could still "look" ADHD, but, it is not a necessary component for the diagnosis. It should not be for many reasons. You can read about that scenario in my posts at ADHD Explainer.
SAS can be part of the low working memory, average IQ, ADHD scenario. When it is, it makes for some significant challenges in our high data load world. SAS is present quite often along with baseline low working memory. Sensory muting is less frequent (you can image why).
In the ASD scenario (also not a disorder), SAS, is very common (up to 90% in some studies). It along with a highly amped up data conflict monitoring in the anterior cingulate cortex account for most of the characteristics of what we currently call ASD.
I have been more than a little pissed off at the medical community since at least 1991 for their spineless continuing use of unscientific and highly pathologizing language to describe a type of brainset that clearly has a huge upside. Using the word "symptoms" was unforgiveable in my book. "Characteristics" is just fine. To keep this particular comment as short as possible, I won't get into all that right now.
I devoted more than half of my 2013 Book to showing how so-called ADHD was not a disorder but a brainset that has both a significant downside (low working memory) and a huge upside, optimal threat responsiveness.
Hartmann and others would do themselves a real favor to read my 2013 Book. But, Hartmann, to whose stack I subscribe, seems intent on ignoring my direct messages to him and also ignoring my earlier comments to some of his posts. Not to mention my earlier emails to him years ago.
The following quote from this post by Hartmann is one of the best ever:
["That’s the signature of diversity, of a species that hedged its bets by producing brains tuned to different settings, some watchful and some steady, because a tribe with both kinds in it survives conditions that would wipe out a tribe with only one. We didn’t all get the same setting because we were never supposed to."]
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to learn from and work with over 400 clients for whom I still have significant longitudinal data for many years between 2006 and 2021 which I will be sharing along with my a new edition of my 2013 Book.
Take care, Ron
Gershon, Z., Bonito-Oliva, A., Kanke, M. et al. (2025). Genetic mapping identifies Homer1 as a developmental modifier of attention. Nat Neurosci 29, 647–659. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-02155-2
(Other citations omitted for brevity. See links above for posts with relevant citations.)
Unfortunately, as you refer to, their "evidence," leading to some misguided medicine, to mistakenly calm the super alert nervous systems that have their very important place in human existence.
Love your radio knob analogy.
ADD and HD: Attention Differently Directed toward what neurotypical minds do not have. Human existence depending on both typical and atypical intelligences, and not only human, as pointed out in an earlier comment.
I, myself, remember an article about wild parakeets in SF. One was atypical, a loner, who watched out and, when needed, assisted any other in the group.
Ahh, the beauty and calm of knowing perspectives that honor life's intent.
Yes! The famous parrot colony. Bunch of them flew through my street once: wonder what fodder they were after. But San Francisco is an extraordinary ecosystem. Bougainvillias flourish, except for a freeze every ten years or so. Roses bloom at Christmas. I left, wanting to escape the wind, but wandered and found out there is wind everywhere! Ended up back here.
As a wildlife rehab volunteer I carried various birds of prey into educational programs.
We had non releasable owls, hawks (buteos) and a black vulture.
What we did not have were accipiters and falcons (OK, one very tiny kestrel who went into KLEEKLEEKLEE mode five minutes after you got him out and had to go back in his safe box). Those birds are hot wired like warp ten starfighters. That grey streak you saw at your bird feeder right before the sparrow exploded was a Cooper's Hawk, destroying the space-time conundrum. Falcons are the fastest living thing on the planet (in a dive). Both are expert level falconry birds.
Anyone can fly a redtail. Buteos like redtails hunt by sitting, watching, waiting, or surfing the thermals. Literal surfer dudes. Owls also hunt by sitting and waiting, or drifting silently over fields (barn owls). All of these make excellent lecture birds, because they are wired to be chill.
You can take an excursion into the mad insanity that is NYC with your shi(t)poo but try putting a wolf on a leash... you won't get out the gate of the sanctuary. I met a wolf-dog hybrid at a faerie fest, and he was lurking in the back of the pavillion tent, looking a bit overwhelmed. That was a fairly quiet outdoor festival, and THAT was a HYBRID. Wolves are hardwired to smell, hear, notice things not even the neurospiciest of neurospicy humans would.
The mundane world of most humans is stupidly overwhelming.
Enter us, the neurospicey hunters. Maybe we've spent a lifetime masking, shielding, escaping the Stupid. Most of the modern human world is not designed for us. We are happier in the woods, the water, the beach... long empty stretches...well they look empty to the Mundanes, but not to us.
Ma Nature requires diversity, of form, function, and brainstyle.
Like! But what about the prey?!? I have had the privilege of many an afternoon on the porch in the woods with a dozen chipmunks, a dozen juncos, and several gray squirrels I have concentrated with seeds to keep me company. One notices sudden absence! I think mostly it's a sharp-tailed hawk I catch a glimpse of, but it's amazing how savvy the targets are! What is happening in their brains, aware before even the shadow passes over? Brilliant.
Great aligned wild nature story.
I would like the choice to quiet the noise sometimes but as much as ADHD has made my life difficult, I don't want it to go away entirely.
Me too. The diagnosis would have just been a guide to coping, not medicating. There was a book by a guy with one of those 12-syllable names (Polish?) maybe Szh.........mahaly???called "Flow," I am reaching back: in the 70's, it seemed to describe ADHD hyper focus, in retrospect. Essential creativity is connecting points of information that are not obviously related.
Tom,
I've been reading your work for decades, and I wanted to thank you.
When I was finally diagnosed with ADHD later in life, I had already spent years wondering why my mind worked differently from so many other people's. Your Hunter/Farmer framework didn't just explain ADHD to me—it helped me understand myself.
I'm one of those people who is always scanning, always asking questions, always looking around the next corner. For much of my life, I was told those qualities were distractions. Your work helped me see that they can also be strengths when they're directed toward a purpose.
For more than twenty years I've worked on election transparency. That work has required persistence, curiosity, and a willingness to keep looking when others have stopped. Reading today's article about the Homer1 research reminded me again that what some people call "noise" can sometimes be the very awareness that allows us to notice what others miss.
I especially appreciated your point that science can explain how a mechanism works, but it cannot tell us whether that mechanism is inherently good or bad. That meaning comes from the environment and from the story we choose to tell.
As someone who was diagnosed later in life, your writing gave me a healthier story to stand on. Instead of seeing myself as someone who needed to become someone else, I came to understand that I simply needed to learn when my Hunter traits were an advantage and when I needed to borrow some Farmer skills.
Thank you for spending so many years helping people like me understand ourselves a little better. Your work has made a real difference in my life, and I suspect in the lives of many others who finally realized they weren't broken—they were simply wired differently.
With gratitude,
John R. Brakey
Executive Director
AUDIT Elections USA
John’s Substack | Substack
I also was diagnosed later, and it might have helped me cope with professional issues earlier, for starters. It's nice to identify with a bit of "community" thanks to Thom. I now recognize with humor when I can't get across a room on my way to do one thing without stopping to do something else! The clutter is never conquered. All I've learned is the futility of (creatively!) building another sorting space. AKA another smatter-pile. Oh well, hello, brethren.
Hi Thom:
Thank you, again, for spotlighting a study that points to one of the most important sentinel features for dealing with threats: Detection. This Homer1 study could be considered relevant but not actually necessary for understanding what are the most important sentinel-defender variables.
It adds important findings but Hartmann and many others continue to ignore the most important variable for sentinel-defender types: sensory amplification.
I was thrilled to note that Hartmann is using the "radar" metaphor. Many of my clients who fit the criteria for sensory amplification syndrome (SAS) were so sensory capable that they could notice things while "sleeping" like changes in air pressure when a door was quietly opened, among many other things. Not so great for unfragmented sleep, but great for their tribe's safety.
The "knob" (according to Hartmann) that the Homer1 study discovered is far less powerful than the knob we have known and understood for over 15 years now.
That volume control relates to locus coeruleus functions that we already know can be significantly modulated with clonidine or guanfacine. In fact, one or the other at the correct individualized dose can be a nearly "miracle" medication for turning the volume down. without numbing or other significant side effects. By turning the volume down, data load is turned down. Distractibility is less likely to take place with lower data loads and less noise at baseline. (As noted in the Homer1 study). Having your radar tuned way up all the time? Not so much fun these days.
I have written so much about sensory amplification in my books and here at substack that I cannot possibly cover it all here. I recommend the following links to my findings.
https://adhdexplainer.substack.com/p/understanding-sensory-sensitivities
https://adhdexplainer.substack.com/p/wouldnt-it-be-nice-if-hypocrisy-made
I think Hartmann came up with a very helpful framing of the differences in the human population with by reframing the anthropologists' "Hunter-Gatherer" in terms of the actual other side of the coin. "Farmer." I have followed his writings since late 1990s. I have hoped he would move his language choices to better reflect the "spectrum" of those characteristics. In other words, we all are on a spectrum when it comes to "Hunter-Farmer." I am leaning toward "the Planner/Organizer—Adventurer/Defender spectrum.
The binary quality of Hartmann's Hunter-Farmer terminology is very misleading. In addition, although Hartmann denies any "contempt" is associated with his "Farmer" terminology, it manifests over and over again. His disdain for how he was treated and what he experienced in medical and educational services is more than a little obvious. And, more than as little justified. How he invented a better way to portray the characteristics of so-called ADHD to his son is especially cool.
However, I think it is time for Hartmann to start using a more up-to-date, accurate, scientific language, rather than the same-old same-old of the last 30 years. I will be writing more about what language considerations I think Hartmann might consider. But, first he needs to get caught up on the science. Honestly.
Thirteen years later, my 2013 Book still stands the test of time. I have just finished a comprehensive review of the literature since 2013 to track, fact-check, and modify what I said in 2013 with what has shown up since then. The preliminary assessment? It is still ahead of its time.
Hartmann continues to conflate ADHD with sensory sensitivity. What was clear in 2013, and is still clear, is that sensory amplification syndrome (mostly a locus coeruleus setting) is a standalone situation. Not a disorder. It can be a challenge due to so many things. But it is clearly independent of low working memory, IQ status, etc.
A person dealing with SAS alone, without low working memory, or lower IQ, could still "look" ADHD, but, it is not a necessary component for the diagnosis. It should not be for many reasons. You can read about that scenario in my posts at ADHD Explainer.
SAS can be part of the low working memory, average IQ, ADHD scenario. When it is, it makes for some significant challenges in our high data load world. SAS is present quite often along with baseline low working memory. Sensory muting is less frequent (you can image why).
In the ASD scenario (also not a disorder), SAS, is very common (up to 90% in some studies). It along with a highly amped up data conflict monitoring in the anterior cingulate cortex account for most of the characteristics of what we currently call ASD.
I have been more than a little pissed off at the medical community since at least 1991 for their spineless continuing use of unscientific and highly pathologizing language to describe a type of brainset that clearly has a huge upside. Using the word "symptoms" was unforgiveable in my book. "Characteristics" is just fine. To keep this particular comment as short as possible, I won't get into all that right now.
I devoted more than half of my 2013 Book to showing how so-called ADHD was not a disorder but a brainset that has both a significant downside (low working memory) and a huge upside, optimal threat responsiveness.
Hartmann and others would do themselves a real favor to read my 2013 Book. But, Hartmann, to whose stack I subscribe, seems intent on ignoring my direct messages to him and also ignoring my earlier comments to some of his posts. Not to mention my earlier emails to him years ago.
The following quote from this post by Hartmann is one of the best ever:
["That’s the signature of diversity, of a species that hedged its bets by producing brains tuned to different settings, some watchful and some steady, because a tribe with both kinds in it survives conditions that would wipe out a tribe with only one. We didn’t all get the same setting because we were never supposed to."]
I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to learn from and work with over 400 clients for whom I still have significant longitudinal data for many years between 2006 and 2021 which I will be sharing along with my a new edition of my 2013 Book.
Take care, Ron
Gershon, Z., Bonito-Oliva, A., Kanke, M. et al. (2025). Genetic mapping identifies Homer1 as a developmental modifier of attention. Nat Neurosci 29, 647–659. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-025-02155-2
(Other citations omitted for brevity. See links above for posts with relevant citations.)
“Proud to be ADHD!”
Great explanation of what science has found.
Unfortunately, as you refer to, their "evidence," leading to some misguided medicine, to mistakenly calm the super alert nervous systems that have their very important place in human existence.
Love your radio knob analogy.
ADD and HD: Attention Differently Directed toward what neurotypical minds do not have. Human existence depending on both typical and atypical intelligences, and not only human, as pointed out in an earlier comment.
I, myself, remember an article about wild parakeets in SF. One was atypical, a loner, who watched out and, when needed, assisted any other in the group.
Ahh, the beauty and calm of knowing perspectives that honor life's intent.
Correction: parrots, not parakeets.
Yes! The famous parrot colony. Bunch of them flew through my street once: wonder what fodder they were after. But San Francisco is an extraordinary ecosystem. Bougainvillias flourish, except for a freeze every ten years or so. Roses bloom at Christmas. I left, wanting to escape the wind, but wandered and found out there is wind everywhere! Ended up back here.
How wonderful to hear more about SF from you, and that you had seen the flock. Yes, wind seems everywhere at some time of day.
Substack just asked I sigh in again to respond. Our world is run my numbers, stealing time to be out of our heads.