The kinds of scientists a curebie world might lose..

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http://www.newstatesman.com/society/201 ... m-autistic

This article, written in 2010 by a woman who has had to face the challenge of rebuilding a life after tetraplegia, discusses the careers of two British scientist (Cavendish and Dirac) in a very thoughtful way, concluding what a loss it would be to humanity if all the "ASD" foetuses were weeded out.

I have known a few ASD scientists. In that subgroup of autism, the cleverest of them seem to be the most socially impaired. Some (not all hopefully!) are challenged as university teachers, for various reasons: some don't pick up that the class are not "getting" points that are made in too arcane a way; others have a very wooden delivery style that many students find boring. Some answer a simple question with a ten minute in-depth answer that is way beyond the level of the questioner. However on the plus side, when marking papers, they tend to be scrupulously - even overscrupulously - fair. Their tolerance of cheating, even in its most minor form, is nil.

From my experience, scientifically able HFAs tend to shine more in science fields where they are engaged in research, particularly in a new field of inquiry, and of the ones I have known, there seems to be a particular affinity for chemistry (Cavendish will be extremely familiar to them).

Many NT scientists today seem to be publicity hounds who seek fame and attention for each study they do - they operate like one-person PR firms, chasing funding grants by being almost full time self-promoters, styling their often unreplicated studies as "stunning new breakthroughs". Personally, this kind of rock star behaviour appalls me in science (but then it would, wouldn't it!) I know that there is a lot of cheating in science now, and am inclined to suspect these ardent self-promoters (rightly or wrongly) as likely candidates for cheating behaviours; the scandals which the journals "Science" and "Nature" exposed last year are far from isolated events.

ASD scientists may lack social skills but on the plus side, they tend to lack the cheating propensity too -my guess is that if they knew they had cheated, they would experience no sense of personal achievement; though I am sure there must have been exceptions.

Not all lacked warmth, either. I was taught statistics by someone on the spectrum at university (outstanding in maths and music) who had a very warm personal style - though he tended to shower it upon the HFAs in the class more than NTs (I don't think he did this consciously, and I don't think he knew he was on the spectrum at the time - if he ever did). Typically, he did not rise as high in the hierarchy as his ability merited, but power and status were of relatively little interest to him.

Reading this article brought back these and many other memories of the scientific HFAs I have had the pleasure to know and learn from; these were good experiences, and even though I didn't know I was on the spectrum myself at the time, there were natural affinities there.

The world would have been a much poorer place without them.

What would happen if autism was weeded out of the human genome? It's possible that humanity might eventually stop advancing technologically, as people like Tesla, Cavendish, and Dirac would never be born. Eventually, the artifacts of civilization would fail, sending us back into a dark age. I'm thinking of Rome and the great civilizations of the American deserts which were unknown to Europeans until the arrival of Mormon settlers into those areas in the 1870s.

The brilliance of Tesla has always seemed to be to be almost in a class of its own; seems almost certainly on the spectrum to me, but still in a class of his own, with his stunningly innovative thought and inventions (some of which were stolen and presented as discoveries made by others like Edison). A life of genius ultimately a tragic life of a man too brilliant for his time.


At the age of 21, Tesla earned a PhD. He ultimately held four PhD degrees (Philosophy, Physics, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical engineering).

His exact Intelligence Quotient is not known, but it is estimated to be 200 (+/- 2). To put this into perspective:

-- Stephen Hawking - 160
-- Paul Allen - 170
-- Garry Kasparov - 192
-- Isaac Newton - 193
-- Leonardo Da Vinci - 200

Roughly. :]

Well I like to think that "Woodpecker" makes the world a better place, I hold the view that scientists with AS are a mixture of good and bad ones just like some NT scientists are good and some are bad.

However to do some area of science it is a great help if your brain has an "upgrade", things like autism and dyslexia can give person some upgrades such as a "vision coprocessor" in their brain which allows them to do somethings faster than Mr Average. I also hold the view that an autist can have the advantage of having a different motivation (special interest) to Mr Average, also some aspies and auties have very good memory for some work related things.

Without people with "alternative" neurology, much of the progress made by our species would not have happened.

I have been told that I can lose touch with how fast my classes pick up on the material. That is something that can show up on exam day when the class average is lower than I expected it to be. (I try to have them achieve at least a 70% class average on my exams. Any lower than that means that I need to look at my teaching progress with them and somehow change how they learn the material.) I do have a hard time reading at what level some of my students can understand what I am teaching them, as I cannot tell just by looking at them. Those that are engaged in the material will often let me know if they do not understand something, but that does not happen if the student was lost from the beginning. One of my old college professors taught me a few tricks on keeping the students interested in the material, as that is important to get them thinking on how chemistry affects their lives. I try to relate to everyday things that they know within the topics that we discuss. I have been told that I have a overall good teaching technique, but there are things that I could improve upon. Most teaching evaluations that I have received from other teachers have commented on my lack of eye contact during lectures, something that I do not know if I can ever fully fix.



I agree. They tend to be the ones that discover new things, but often do not get the credit for what they have found.



Yes, quite a few NT scientists drum to their own beat when it comes to publications. My former PhD research adviser used to claim a high number of publications to his name, yet most of them were communications (very small articles) in odd journals and not full papers in high level scientific journals. He would publish every little thing he could just to get his name out there. Got a crystal structure? It got published in a crystallographic journal right away. That behavior did not impress me. When I was still in his research group, he was pushing us to publish our results even though they were incomplete on the analysis stage. In one instance, he jumped the gun on something and published results that lead to a conclusion that was flat wrong. I told him this in a group meeting and we had a major argument about it. A few months later (I had left the group at that stage), another major research group published their results that proved him wrong. Yes, I had a good laugh at that one.

QuantumChemist, (on the assumption that you teach students chemistry), are HFAs over-represented in your classes, from the 1-2% you would at most expect, based on the population incidence estimates of ASD? (I do realise that the 1-2% is referring to the whole spectrum, not just HFAs, so let's say 1%). What percentage would you estimate amongst your students, on the basis of your own teaching experience?

You are correct that I teach chemistry (mostly general chemistry right now). I would say that the rate of HFAs are higher in the chemistry major classes than in the non-major chemistry classes. As for the exact percentage of chemistry majors that I suspect to be HFAs in my classes, that I do not know, but would guess probably in the 5 to 10% range. I would say the rate is probably higher in physics majors than chemistry majors at my university. (We do have some odd dual major students occasionally that have some of the ASD traits, but not enough to probably qualify, or the rate would be a little higher for our department.) One thing that I should mention is that many college students start out as chemistry majors in the beginning, but branch off when they become juniors in college (usually to go into medical school, pharmacy school, optometry school, etc.) as well as those we lose due to the rigorous demands of constantly studying rather than partying. The threat of needing to take physical chemistry usually does in a few students every year. In the non-majors chemistry classes that I teach, the HFAs rate is probably above 1% but not by much...

Thank you, that is really interesting. I have wondered about the chemistry connection for a long time, and again recently, prompted by the most recent (and very good) biography of Alan Turing. My father taught chemistry too, and a sibling worked at Caltech after completing her doctorate in chemistry here. I was much more interested in physics..

Most likely, they would just get rid of severe Autism and get rid of the rest in name only. We would all go back to being the brilliant misunderstood minds without labels we were before, like when our parents were children. It would be damaging to a degree, because it would force us to try again in vain to reconnect with a group that constantly rejects us. NTs are interested in good names and reputations, not actually helping people as a priority. Shoddy science would take us back to replicating the same mistakes. Our progress would slow, and maybe something new would come along to take autism's place. That looks like a cold dark lonely Eugenics filled world.

One "cure" they could provide for HFAs that wouldn't hinder human progress, though, is understanding. It's very refreshing to just be able to sit down and talk about communication, popularity, groups, common mistakes people make, proper responses, etc. We're really fast learners, and knowing how to pretend to be normal would probably be enough to fool anti-Autism proponents into thinking they found a cure.

I'm almost afraid of a world without Autistics, though, and I hope I never see that day. NTs always fail to grasp the most important details. They seem to have very limited capacities and attention spans.

Knowing how to pretend to be normal has already fooled many into thinking ABA is working and people "kidnapped" by autism have been "rescued". Pretending to be normal has fooled layman, professionals and even autism experts into think autistic people they are interacting with are not autistic.

It won't just be science only affected, the creative world would be significantly slowed. Science and the arts would not be stopped as there are talented NT's in those fields.

You would also have "different" NT's that will be mistaken for autistics and given the cure doing who knows what damage to them.

Even in universities though, if we are on the staff, we still have to do the "pretending to be normal" thing. It is expected and imposed in all sorts of unwritten ways; and the left field thinking which is sometimes more common to (certainly not exclusive to) some HFAs, innovative ways of solving some problems that goes counter to the previously received wisdom, (particularly if it is the Head of Department's received wisdom!) is more often resented than admired, at least from what I have personally seen. You risk being branded a renegade who is not toeing the party line. Sometimes (far less often) it is admired, though, I don't want to be totally black and white about this. Sometimes you get lucky and find yourself working in a little nest of HFAs who are mutually reinforcing and get excited about the whole process, the sum of the parts adding up to a much greater whole. It's rare, but it happens and it's a great experience when it does. More commonly, we tend to run into things like being back stabbed, isolated, sidelined and criticised for not being part of the party line.

People outside academia rarely realise how individualistic, competitive and political it can be. The idea of the "Ivory Tower" as a place where only 'pure thought' occurs and where startling, innovative breakthroughs are always supported was never true, never will be true, because human beings run the system!

This morning something Ghandi once said has popped up in my memory for some reason. It's this:

Ghandi was once asked by a reporter what he thought of British civilisation. He replied "I think it would be a very good idea". I would be tempted to say the same if I was asked about the acceptance of 'breakthrough' thinkers in at least some scientific disciplines, though I do have some hope and faith that there are wonderful exceptions nonetheless.