Autism brought an advantage back in the day

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We really, really don't. Sorry if that seems harsh.

It galls me that so many people here seem to think only we are able to come up with new, out-of-the-box ideas. Just by looking at the portion of the population that has autism it's likely that most innovations human society has seen were the products of non-autistics.

Try not to let it gall you. A lot of us have had crap from folks who seem to think we're just a bunch of inferiors, and it's only to be expected that we'll sometimes exaggerate a bit when we try to set the record straight. Of course there are non-autistics who have had original ideas. But I doubt it'd do any good for us to see ourselves as not having any edge at all over them in that respect.

[quote AJisHere = It galls me that so many people here seem to think only we are able to come up with new, out-of-the-box ideas. Just by looking at the portion of the population that has autism it's likely that most innovations human society has seen were the products of non-autistics.]

In some fields, a disproportionate number of innovative ideas do seem to show (on a per capita basis) a possible advantage in the favour of the autistic members in those disciplines. And when they achieve tremendous success, like a Nobel Prize, something odd often seems to happen: they are sort of "upgraded" the popular media, the hive mind, even in their own faculties, to an "as if" neurotypical status thereafter. Anyone familiar with the politics of autism and especially the stigmas surrounding it can see why this phenomenon happens. If, by neurotypical definition (imposed definition, in that it is imposed on a less powerful group) people on the spectrum are lesser than/impaired/incapable of normal function, then acknowledgment of their outstanding achievements defies the stigmatisation applied to the whole of the spectrum, and threatens the validity of the stigma generally. Reframing the very high achievers as if they were neurotypical protects the status quo, and the power differential in favour of the dominant group.

More concisely, German born sociologist and historian Gerhard Falk wrote:

All societies will always stigmatize some conditions and some behaviors because doing so provides for group solidarity by delineating "outsiders" from "insiders".

Falk describes stigma based on two categories, existential stigma and achieved stigma. Falk defines existential stigma "as stigma deriving from a condition which the target of the stigma either did not cause or over which he has little control." He defines Achieved Stigma as "stigma that is earned because of conduct and/or because they contributed heavily to attaining the stigma in question. (Credit: The last two Falk paragraphs are quoted from Wikipedia).

It seems to me impossible to deny in any rational way that people on the spectrum are subject to existential stigma. I am not galled at all by the claims that gall you, because I see those claims as a counterbalance to the unfairness of exclusion based on the imposed stigma.

@B19: That is your prerogative. I feel like it is wishful thinking at best. Of course we are stigmatized, but it seems disingenuous and dangerous to make up myths to "counterbalance" it.

I try to remind myself of that, but it doesn't make me feel any better about what seems like... well to be blunt, a load of horses**t. People need to feel empowered, sure. I'd feel better if they did it by focusing on things that aren't speculation and fantasy. Can't we find something real?

Stigma is all too real. The understatement of ASD achievement is real too.

I agree with the first statement. I'm not sold on the second, and I believe the thesis of the original post to be an overstatement of that ability.

She didn't make up a myth, she was referencing actual studies.

Don't jump to conclusions prematurely. Nowhere did I say that innovations are produced exclusively by isolated people picking brilliant ideas out of thin air. The real myth that needs to be exposed is that innovations are the work of brilliant individuals. It is the hierarchical social neurotypical world that has created this myth and related celebrity cults.

The world is not black and white, it is full of diversity. I encourage you to watch the lecture on the creative process from Jacque Fresco, see link in earlier post.

The creative process is a collective undertaking. Sometimes the collaboration is explicit, as part as a team, and sometimes it is implicit, by people reading, observing and learning about what others have done, and by tweaking experiments in a new direction, or by combining concepts from two or more domains. This process is also know as conceptual blending.

What I do claim is that those who take the time to observe, analyse, experiment at the limits of human knowledge, and learn deeply are those who have at least some traits that would not be considered neurotypical. In this context several autistic traits are highly beneficial. How many of the people who engage in creative and exploratory activities qualify for an ASD diagnosis is not really important. What is much more concerning is the strong bias against any form of divergent thinking and creativity (good paper on this topic http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/c ... t=articles) that conflicts with established mainstream social norms.

Autistics have the "advantage" of being partially blind to social expectations, and are made to suffer for not meeting these expectations. I am having great fun teaching techniques for divergent thinking and interdisciplinary research. There are things in the social realm that are non-intuitive for autistics, and there are other things that are non-intuitive for people with more neurotypical cognitive lenses.

None of which appear to be applicable to the thesis of this thread. That's what I'm referring to when I talk about "myths". I'd consider any attempt to claim long-dead people were autistic to be the same. I've seen people claim the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Isaac Newton were autistic, which is impossible to actually show.

It's a bunch of fluff.

You want to talk about the present day? We've got evidence, we've got studies. Take it back before that and it's just "I'm going to believe this because it makes me feel better about myself."

I'd like to believe we can do better than that.

@jbw:

It's not a conclusion, it's fact: the claim that prehistoric innovations were linked to autism is not falsifiable. We don't know.



So are you or are you not saying full "neurotypicals" are not capable of that behavior? Please clear this up for me.

Just because we don't know doesn't mean we can't speculate. Yes, all it is is speculation, but that doesn't mean the speculation is necessarily wrong.

Sure, as long as it's acknowledged as speculation. When we start treating it as though it were fact, there's a problem. That's certainly the implication I see from a large number of people in claims like these, if not outright stated.

I believe that NTs without detectable autistic traits may be able to learn techniques for divergent thinking and systematic experimentation, but from what I have observed, this learning process is as big a challenge as learning social skills is for autistics, and the results are comparable to the [limited] results autistics can achieve in the social realm.

But more importantly, a significant proportion of people in the general population have a few autistic traits at a sub-clinical level. People from this subgroup often also have highly developed special interests, and no doubt that this subgroup contributes to innovation in a significant way.

Watch this little experiment http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1z48q ... start=2160 to understand the strength of the unconscious neurotypical desire/instinct to imitate, and to understand how a lack of that desire leads to new variations of behaviour.

This experiment is consistent with what I have personally observed in the approaches that different people use in the development of software solutions. I have seen people make extensive use of copy and paste in order to arrive at working code, without ever worrying about understandability and complexity; and I have seen others who take time to understand all aspects of the problem at hand, who only use pieces of code that they are personally familiar with.

A lack of a desire to imitate is an autistic trait that often leads to solutions that reduce the spurious complexity that easily accumulates in the rituals that constitute mainstream culture.

It is likely there are a higher percentage of divergent brilliant autistic thinkers then there are in the general population. Autistic savants as a significant minority of the autistic population has been demonstrated. But since Autistics are such a small minority it is most likely the vast majority of brilliant thinkers are nuerotypical.

The thing about scientifically peer reviewed studies is that they will reflect majority bias. Because of lack of knowlege and the strong opinions and politicalization of the subject Autism seems to be paricuarly vulnrable to bias.

Exactly my thoughts.

If by neurotypical you mean not autistic, yeah, but I'd hardly call any brilliant thinker as if nothing else their intelligence separates them from most people.

I watched the whole documentary that JBW posted. I found the imitation experiment, how the average child would imitate adults more than necessary to complete their task, thought-provoking. What does it take for them to move beyond their desire to be “just like the grown-ups” and into the realm of individuality and creativity? Learning about the different paths that different creative children take to get to this stage would be fascinating.. Can anyone comment?

The documentary says that 80% of people with autism can’t live “independently,” although as we’ve mentioned on other threads, independence and interdependence are complex..

Also, Dr. Cohen discussed the continuum of autistic traits. In his discussion, it is evident that diagnoses of autism may have more to do with the person’s dysfunction, rather than their gifts. Dr. Cohen said that if someone had metrics that indicated the autistic spectrum, he would “withhold the diagnosis unless there’s a clear, clinical need. It’s not about science; it’s about clinical judgement.” This artificially inflates the lack of independence of people on the spectrum, especially those diagnosed later in life.

When I talk to researchers, they tell me about their hyper-focus on their subject. Their excitement about finding the answer seems to carry them through the minutia of day-to-day research. Also, they seem detail-oriented enough to enjoy it. We need them and their hyper-focus in our society, so that particular trait can be an advantage.