Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

medscape.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 93 posts

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#21

Post by lohszvu »

DanBC wrote: post #13
daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

No, it's a victory for all the women who are autistic but go years without a diagnosis because of stereotypes about autism. Simon Baren Cohen is an expert, but he's got some stuff badly wrong before, such as saying that autism is a condition marked by lack of empathy because of alexithymia. Turns out this is incorrect, but it caused considerable hardship for many autistic people who were unable to get a dx because th…

How does a diagnosis benefit someone with autism?

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#22

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

whatshisface wrote: post #14
daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

It's only a political thing in the minds of the politically-inclined. Since when was autism a cornerstone in anybody's ideology? I think the only reason this is riling people up is that it involves gender in the title.

“Autism-identity” could be considered an idiological movement.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#23

Post by kerbalspacepro »

Gimpei wrote: post #12

Looks like it was an issue with a script. I wouldn't be surprised if this isn't a bigger issue than we know in science. Good scripting practice is not taught in most programs. On top of that it's not really possible to write tests for regressions.

What would a good resource for good scripting practices?

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#24

Post by whatshisface »

phkahler wrote: post #20
daenz wrote: post #2

A quick look at Simon Baron Cohen's tweet[1] (linked from the article) shows that this topic seems extremely divisive and inflammatory to people. Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? [1] https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/832490232721371136

>> Is this retraction and resulting modified study seen as an important victory for people promoting that there are no differences between the "male" and "female" brains? Yes - of that you can be certain. Was the retraction and modification done to satisfy those people? That's an important question that will probably go unanswered.

>Was the retraction and modification done to satisfy those people?

They're saying that it was a methodological error, so probably not.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#25

Post by dvtrn »

badfrog wrote: post #19
uasm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Quoting the actual mistake is more useful" This isn't Twitter, and it's not my job to condense a paper down to a single sentence for people that wouldn't otherwise spare the time to actually read the article in the first place. Commenter is more than welcome to go ahead and do the reading themselves.

> it's not my job You're certainly under no obligation to comment at all. But if you are going to post a comment, especially one that implies some laziness of the person you're responding to ("It's literally in the first sentence"), you might want to take a few extra seconds to make sure you're providing useful and relevant information.

Like an answer to the question posed?

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#26

Post by NikkiA »

lohszvu wrote: post #21
DanBC wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a victory for all the women who are autistic but go years without a diagnosis because of stereotypes about autism. Simon Baren Cohen is an expert, but he's got some stuff badly wrong before, such as saying that autism is a condition marked by lack of empathy because of alexithymia. Turns out this is incorrect, but it caused considerable hardship for many autistic people who were unable to get a dx because th…

How does a diagnosis benefit someone with autism?

It allows them to request accomodation under the ADA for one.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#28

Post by pjmorris »

lohszvu wrote: post #21
DanBC wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a victory for all the women who are autistic but go years without a diagnosis because of stereotypes about autism. Simon Baren Cohen is an expert, but he's got some stuff badly wrong before, such as saying that autism is a condition marked by lack of empathy because of alexithymia. Turns out this is incorrect, but it caused considerable hardship for many autistic people who were unable to get a dx because th…

How does a diagnosis benefit someone with autism?

Anecdotal, n=1: Our son's autism diagnosis got him placement in a special pre-school focused on special developmental needs, and has gotten him special placement all through his public school career to date, with small classes and lots of extra support.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#29

Post by timwaagh »

sannee wrote: post #15
FakeComments wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoting the actual mistake is more useful, as that sentence doesn’t actually clarify the question — it’s what they’d say if it were for political reasons, as well. > In the letter, Ecker wrote that she and her coauthors had "identified a problem with the script that was used for the prediction of biological sex in male and female individuals with ASD based on their respective neuroanatomy in our original sample." > T…

> identified a problem with the script Shitty academia code strikes again. It's sort of unfortunate that most of academic fields have turned to domain-specific software engineering, which graduates are woefully unprepared to do properly.

the real problem is this code never got peer reviewed.

Re: Study Linking Autism to 'Male Brain' Retracted, Replaced

#30

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

lohszvu wrote: post #21
DanBC wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a victory for all the women who are autistic but go years without a diagnosis because of stereotypes about autism. Simon Baren Cohen is an expert, but he's got some stuff badly wrong before, such as saying that autism is a condition marked by lack of empathy because of alexithymia. Turns out this is incorrect, but it caused considerable hardship for many autistic people who were unable to get a dx because th…

How does a diagnosis benefit someone with autism?

Early intervention with behaviour modification therapy, especially in early school life where social interaction skills really matter.

In adult life, it can lead to better psychological therapy. Managing anxiety in ASD is different to neurotypical people, for example.

Post reply on HN