The formula for concluding that an historical genius was autistic is simple:
Genius + Eccentricity + Aversion to Small Talk = Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Autism researchers in the UK and Ireland are at it again. Not finding causes of autism or developing knowledge of treatment and possible cures. No our good friends on the other side of the Atlantic are busy promoting the "Einstein was Autistic" picture of autism spectrum disorders. When it comes to autism, our English and Irish friends have no qualms about abandoning scientific certainty and the realities of the severely autistic living today for ideological, historical speculation about whether Einstein, and in addition Newton might have been autistic.
Genius + Eccentricity + Aversion to Small Talk = Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Autism researchers in the UK and Ireland are at it again. Not finding causes of autism or developing knowledge of treatment and possible cures. No our good friends on the other side of the Atlantic are busy promoting the "Einstein was Autistic" picture of autism spectrum disorders. When it comes to autism, our English and Irish friends have no qualms about abandoning scientific certainty and the realities of the severely autistic living today for ideological, historical speculation about whether Einstein, and in addition Newton might have been autistic.
The bold headline on World Update News declares that Einstein and Newton ‘had autism’. In the article Cambridge University researchers are reported to have stated that Einstein might have had Aspergers. The article itself is fairly balanced and cites Dr. Glen Elliot from the University of California at San Francisco as stating that the eccentricities of both esteemed scientific geniuses can simply reflect their high intelligence without indicating that either was autistic. Professor Simon Baron Cohen of Cambridge University, however, clings to the genius as autism speculation. In February Professor Michael Fitzgerald offered his latest in a very long list of historical geniuses that he specultes were autistic - Charles Darwin. Professor Fitgerald even speculates that Mozart was autistic. This is the same Mozart who married, had several children and was a member of more than one lodge including the Freemasons in which he achieved the status of Master, had many friends and was well regarded. Just your typical autistic?
In the formula above "learned" professors like Mr. Baron Cohen and Mr Fitzgerald simply disregard some uncomfortable realities in making their historical speculative diagnoses:
1) Total lack of observation of the "patients"
2) Reliance on second and third hand accounts of persons no longer alive many of whom were not health care of psychological professionals.
3) Contrary evidence concerning ability to form intense interpersonal relationships iincluding marriages.
4) Lack of discomfort in public speaking.
Professors Fitzgerald and Baron Cohen are academics. They are of course free to speculate about any subject that flits through their consciousness. But it seems strange that these two learned men do not find it worthy to mention that there are many severely autistic persons living lives dependent on the care of others, some with limited intellectual and practical skills.
It seems, for one reason or another, that the learned professors are ashamed of the plight of the severely autistic who live with us today, preferring to speculate about long dead historical geniuses.
autism
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