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Autism and Invention Are Connected

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Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#131

Post by username90 »

michaelt wrote: post #55
amelius wrote: post #27

Please don't take this the wrong way, but there is a 3-to-1 male-to-female ratio in autism prevalence. Does this mean that males invent more things than females? Or is the percentage of people with autism too small to have an effect here? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28545751/

Men get far more patents - but as men also get far more engineering degrees, I don't think you need autism as an explanation.

You don't think that traits people associate with autism has anything to do with whether they choose to get an engineering degree?

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#132

Post by ThrustVectoring »

Kharvok wrote: post #76

How much of autism diagnosis is just people misunderstanding people with high IQ? Obviously autism != intelligence, but I'd wager a fair amount of people are thought to be "on the spectrum" when really they just have an incredibly high IQ compared to their peers. Obviously not coming at this from a medical background.

Autism diagnoses should be inversely correlated with IQ at the same level of symptoms. For what it's worth, this correlation should hold for every mental health diagnosis.

Pretty much all diagnosis criteria include some form of "and these things cause some sort of problems in the patient's life". Even if it doesn't, if someone's school/life/career is going OK, they don't seek out a mental health diagnosis. And IQ is one thing that is positively correlated with all sorts of desirable life outcomes.

Like, one notable anecdotal example of this is Bill Gross, the "Bond King". He found out that he was on the spectrum when he was in his seventies. Basically a psych was talking about Asperger's at a dinner, Bill was like "that sounds like me", and his wife was like "of course, dear".

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#133

Post by ThrustVectoring »

solveit wrote: post #90
Godel_unicode wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any data for this distribution? This is the first time I've heard someone suggest any particular shape to this distribution, much less that it's shaped as you suggest.

I don't know about these precise numbers, but ~57% of autistic people have an edit: my source is the CDC( https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html ) for IQ and this paper https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3727194/ for proportion of nonverbal autism.

Note that these numbers are for autism diagnoses, not autism cases. Someone with profound difficulties in life is far more likely to wind up with an autism diagnosis than higher-functioning autistics that are more likely to figure out successful adaptations.

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#134

Post by cma »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #52

Some autistic nitpicking : > our ancestors started inventing things 70,000 to 100,000 years ago. Erm, and what about the other 200k-230k years of homo sapiens? Not to mention that Homo erectus invented the handaxe and domesticated fire about 1700k years ago, both of which were a pretty big deal! https://tauromachy.org/2018/07/18/the-handaxe-the-thundersto...

I have no opinion on this, but some think the hand axe was genetically transmitted rather than culturally: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066817/

And that modern humans had some kind of creativity explosion substantially after they were anatomically modern.

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#135

Post by BlueTemplar »

tasogare wrote: post #126
BlueTemplar wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant factor seems to be that the way (not only STEM) academia is currently organized means that women have to pick between a career or having any children (at ages favorable to childbearing): https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4522 And I kind of have the impression that the situation here actually got worse during the last decades?

This theory doesn’t any hold scrutiny: some academic or academic-like fields are dominated by women despite having the same formal organization as the STEM ones.

I would guess that they were already dominated by women at the undergraduate level, perhaps even more so ?

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#136

Post by BlueTemplar »

hnracer wrote: post #65
BlueTemplar wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A significant factor seems to be that the way (not only STEM) academia is currently organized means that women have to pick between a career or having any children (at ages favorable to childbearing): https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4522 And I kind of have the impression that the situation here actually got worse during the last decades?

I'm also talking about regular career choices (not academia) that only involve a three or four year undergraduate degree. Women self select out of technical pursuits (CS) and self select into more verbal or empathic areas (Law or Medicine, and an even more extreme example being liberal arts) even though such areas might entail even more study than CS. This self selection is magnified when women have more choice and f…

Yes, I'm specifically talking of women loss after undergraduate level.

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#137

Post by Shmebulock »

Reminds me of Peter Thiel's view that autism is useful because it leads to less herd-like thinking/peer-pressure succumb-tion/mimesis. This aspect might be more important than the one this article puts forward i.e. that autists thinking itself lends itself better to being inventive.

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#138

Post by rimiform »

PlugTunin wrote: post #21

Interesting read. Minor point of clarification: It's noted that many autistic folks struggle with empathy. There are two dimensions to empathy, cognitive and affective . Cognitive is more about perspective taking, or reading the feelings / intentions of others, while affective is the ability to share/understand the emotions of others, and respond appropriately. Putting aside that the two may overlap, it's often the c…

It's interesting that you point out that the cognitive aspect is the part autistics struggle with, because my experience with autistic people (myself included) is that they tend to be adept at receiving the signal, but are unable to respond appropriately. For example, I find it obvious when someone is interested in what I'm saying, but I'm not sure what to do with that information (e.g. do I just stop? Switch subjects, which might lead to the same problem? Etc.).

Where did you find this information? I might be self-analysing wrongly, so it'd be helpful to know how one might reach the opposite conclusion.

Re: Autism and Invention Are Connected

#139

Post by rimiform »

ksm1717 wrote: post #14

The first sentence rubs me the wrong way. The claim that you wouldn’t expect autism to be coupled with invention because it is a disability only makes sense because of the semantics of labeling autism necessarily a disability. Not to mention the slight to disabilities as a whole

I understand that sentiment, but I reckon it's better overall to emphasise the disadvantages, because that puts the focus on "things to improve", so to speak. Otherwise, if the focus lies 'too much' with the advantages (such as the ability to focus, which is not present in all individuals) it can be overlooked that autism has real (sometimes quite debilitating) disadvantages.
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